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BY  GEORGE  STERLING 

The  Caged   Eagle  and    Other    Poems 

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The  Evanescent  City,  with  Illustrations 

by  Francis  Bruguiere.  4to.  Boards.         ,75 
A.   M.   ROBERTSON 
San  Francisco 


THE  CAGED  EAGLE 

AND  OTHER  POEMS 


THE  CAGED  EAGLE 

AND  OTHER  POEMS 


BY 

GEORGE  STERLING 


AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  SUNS" 

"A  WINE  OF  WIZARDRY" 

"THE  HOUSE  OF  ORCHIDS" 

"BEYOND  THE  BREAKERS" 

"YOSEM1TE" 


A.  M.  ROBERTSON 

SAN  FRANCISCO 
1916 


COPYRIGHT 

1916 
BY  A.  M.   ROBERTSON 


TO 

RAPHAEL  WEILL 
CHEVALIER   OF  THE   LEGION  OF  HONOR 


339711 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  CAGED  EAGLE  AND  OTHER  POEMS: 

THE  WITCH 9 

To  TWILIGHT 14 

HENRI ...  16 

CONSPIRACY 19 

INDIAN  SUMMER 22 

BALLAD  OF  THE  FATAL  WORD     . 23 

ON  THE  SALE  OF  THE  LOVE-LETTERS  OF  A  DEAD  POET       .  27 

MEDIATRIX 28 

A  DOG  WAITS  His  DEAD  MISTRESS 30 

HUMILITY  IN  ART 32 

AN  AUTUMN  THRUSH 34 

THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 36 

OCTOBER •.     .     .     .  38 

IN  AUTUMN 4° 

THE  CAGED  EAGLE     • 42 

TIME  AND  TEARS 45 

To  AN  OLD  NURSE 46 

To  THE  MUMMY  OF  THE  LADY  Isis  (In  the  Bohemian  Club, 

San  Francisco) 49 

THE  RAMPARTS  AND  THE  ROSE 5° 

ON  A  PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN 52 

THE  TRYST 54 

A  YELLOW  ROSE 58 

SHAKESPEARE 61 

THE  SHADOW  OF  NIRVANA 65 

THE  RETURN 66 

MOLOCH  .                                                          6§ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  CAGED  EAGLE  AND  OTHER  POEMS— Continued: 

THREE  SONNETS  ON  SLEEP 7o 

MAN 73 

ON  A  CITY  STREET      . 74 

ILLUSION 75 

ESSENTIAL  NIGHT 76 

THE  GLEANER 77 

CALIFORNIA 7g 

POEMS  ON  THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION: 

ODE  ON  THE  OPENING 87 

THE  BUILDERS 102 

THE  EVANESCENT  CITY I04 

PERSONAL  POEMS: 

FRANK  UNGER 109 

To  XAVIER  MARTINEZ,  PAINTER no 

THE  LIGHT-GIVER m 

To  MARGARET  ANGLIN II4 

ON  THE  GREAT  WAR: 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  VALKYRS n7 

THE  DREAM  OF  WHILHELM  II I2o 

EARTH'S  ANTHEM 121 

To  GERMANY 122 

BETRAYAL I27 

BELGIUM,  AUGUST,  1914 I2g 

ENGLAND,  AUGUST,  1914 I30 

To  THE  WAR-LORDS I3I 

THE  WAR-GOD 134 

THE  LITTLE  FARM I35 

THE  HOUSE  OF  WAR I36 

"As  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING" i37 

To  BELGIUM I38 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ON  THE  GREAT  WAR — Continued: 

THE  Two  PRAYERS 139 

AFTERMATH 140 

THE  WAR-MACHINE 141 

BOMBARDMENT 142 

GERMANY 143 

THE  DEATH-CHORDS 144 

THE  FEAST 145 

WAR'S  Music 146 

THE  AEROPLANE 147 

BEFORE  DAWN 148 

THE  TURK 149 

THE  NEW  KINGS 150 

To  FRANCE 151 

THE  NIGHT  OF  MAN    .           152 

To  THE  ALLIED  ARMS 153 

THE  BATTLEFIELD  AT  NIGHT 154 

KINGSHIP 155 

THE  DEATH  OF  RUPERT  BROOKE     ........  156 

THE  HELOTS 157 

THE  CROWN-PRINCE  AT  VERDUN 158 

BEFORE  DAWN  IN  AMERICA 159 

GUN-PRACTICE 160 

To  ENGLAND 161 

CIVILIZATION  AT  BAY 162 

THE  DAY  OF  DECISION 163 

BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  1916 164 

THE  "LUSITANIA" 165 

WAR,  THE  PAST 166 

WAR,  THE  PRESENT 167 

WAR,  THE  FUTURE 168 


THE  CAGED  EAGLE 

AND  OTHER  POEMS 

THE  WITCH 

Erik  the  prince  came  back  from  sea, 

His  galley  low  with  spoil- 
Armor  and  silks  and  weeping  slaves, 

Silver  and  wine  and  oil. 

And  there  was  one  that  did  not  weep, 

But  laughed  in  Erik's  face, 
And  'tween  the  helmsman  and  the  mast 

Strode  with  a  leopard's  grace. 

Her  hair  was  darker  than  the  night 

In  which  our  foemen  sink; 
Her  limbs  were  whiter  than  the  milk 

Of  which  our  maidens  drink. 


THE  WITCH 


Her  lips  were  coral-red;  her  eyes 
As  shoaling  seas  were  green. 

She  wore  cupped  gold  on  either  breast 
And  one  blue  gem  between. 

And  cross  her  path  or  say  her  word 

No  man  save  Erik  dared ; 
But  all  day  long  men  stood  apart, 

And  knit  their  brows,  and  stared. 

And  they  have  made  the  harbor  strand, 
And  all  have  seen  her  charms; 

Erik  hath  borne  her  to  the  shore 
Uplifted  hi  his  arms. 

Soon  hi  the  council-hall  they  stood 

Of  Gudrod,  sire  and  king, 
Who  bade  grey  Sigurd,  seer  and  skald, 

The  prince's  valor  sing. 


10 


THE  WITCH 

Long  looked  the  skald  on  Erik's  face 

And  face  of  her  he  led; 
Then  snatched  the  blade  from  Erik's  belt 

And  stabbed  the  captive  dead. 

Erik  hath  sprung  at  Sigurd's  throat, 
But  four  lords  hold  him  fast, 

With  eyes  that  glare  on  nothingness, 
And  straining  arms  upcast. 

There  is  hot  tumult  in  the  place, 
With  clash  of  steel  and  word, 

Until  in  thunder  over  all 
The  king's  deep  voice  is  heard. 

"Assoil  thee,  skald!  and  give  good  cause 

For  this  that  thou  hast  done, 
Or  ravens  for  thy  sightless  eyes 
Shall  fight  ere  set  of  sun!" 


ii 


THE  WITCH 


The  skald  stood  silent  and  apart, 

Then  smiled  upon  his  deed. 

'It  is  that  we  bleed  not,"  he  said, 

"That  she  in  time  does  bleed. 

From  isles  of  sin  that  one  was  brought, 

Far  westward  ard  to-south; 
She  whispered  in  a  witch's  tongue 

And  hath  a  harlot's  mouth. 

O  Gudrod !  in  thy  grandsire's  time 

Such  one  across  the  sill 
Was  led  into  the  royal  house 

To  love,  and  plot  her  will. 

Thou  hast  heard  sung  what  strong  one's  death 

Her  cunning  did  devise, 
With  sorcery  of  philtred  glance,— 

With  promise  of  her  eyes. 


12 


THE  WITCH 


Thou  hast  heard  sung  the  woes  she  wrought 

With  swords  of  jealous  men : 
Know  now  that  in  this  serpent  slain 

That  poison  came  again ! 

I  have  done  well  by  thee  and  thine— 

Thy  daughters,  lords  and  son; 
And  many  hearts  shall  go  unpierced, 

For  that  I  pierced  this  one." 

He  made  an  end,  and  smiled  aloof  .... 

The  great  king  bent  his  head  .... 
Then,  gazing  long  on  him  that  smiled, 
"Thou  hast  done  well,"  he  said. 

And  from  the  sorceress  the  blood 

Crept  slowly  on  the  stone, 
And  pointed  like  a  scarlet  arm 

At  Gudrod  on  his  throne. 


TO  TWILIGHT 

Linger,  we  pray, 
Shy  mother  of  the  white  and  earliest  star! 

For  in  thy  keeping  are 

The  Dreams  that  suffer  not  the  light  of  day — 
Dim  presences,  that  find  us  from  afar. 

O  soundless  feet, 
Between  the  night  and  sunset  hesitant! 

The  cricket's  eager  chant 
And  voice  of  some  faint  bell,  remotely  sweet, 
Alone  await  thee,  clear  and  consonant. 

Sing  to  thyself 
A  song  as  pure,  as  low,  as  delicate, 

Ere  music  seem  too  late, 
Or  yet  the  moonray  seek  the  hidden  elf, 
Or  mute,  the  night  fall  uncompassionate. 


TO  TWILIGHT 


We  shall  not  hear; 
But  in  the  heart  an  echo  swiftly  flown 

Shall  touch  us  from  thine  own, 
And  voices  of  the  past,  forlorn  and  clear, 
Shall  haunt  us  from  the  days  that  love  hath 
known  .... 

So  hast  thou  come, 
Whose  benediction  ceases  not  for  night, 

To  close  the  gates  of  light, 
And  tell,  from  fields  for  thee  a  moment  dumb, 
That  age-old  pain  of  Beauty  and  her  flight. 


HENRI 

To-night  I  drifted  to  the  restaurant 
We  scribblers  fancy,  finding  it  unchanged, 
Save  that  I  saw  no  more  my  dapper  friend, 
The  waiter  Henri.    When  I  asked  for  him, 
"Gone  to  the  war,"  another  waiter  said  .... 

"Gone  to  the  war!"    That  man  so  mild  a  part 
Of  peace  and  its  traditions !    Debonnair, 
Childlike,  alert,  and  none  too  strong,  we'd  thought. 
He  who  had  served  so  deftly,  and,  secure, 
Had  walked  the  beaten  path  and  sheltered  ways- 
He  now  was  with  the  cannon  and  the  kings ! 
Gentle  he  was,  and  ever  with  a  smile: 
Ah!  wears  he  still  a  smile?    For  now  his  soul 
Has  taken  iron,  and  stood  forth  austere, 
Made  suddenly  acquainted  with  despair, 
And  pain,  and  horror,  and  the  timeless  things. 


16 


HENRI 

I  called  him  once,  and  he  unhurried  came; 
And  now  he  hurries  at  Another's  beck- 
Ancient,  enormous,  immemorial  War— 
And,  by  the  trampled  valley  of  the  Meuse, 
Finds  a  red  service  in  the  day's  vast  hall 
Of  thunders,  and  in  night's  domain  of  death 
Attends,  unless  he  too  be  of  the  dead. 
And  I  sit  here  beneath  the  harmless  lights ! 

O  simple  soul  War's  hands  laid  hold  upon 
And  led  to  devastations,  and  the  shock 
Of  legions,  and  the  rumble  of  huge  guns, 
And  crash  and  lightning  of  the  rended  shells 
Above  a  region  veined  and  pooled  with  blood ! 
You  now  have  part  with  all  intrepid  youth 
That  took,  in  ages  past,  the  battle-line, 
And  in  a  mighty  Cause  had  faith  and  love. 
You  are  the  hero  now,  and  I  the  sheep ! 
And  quietly  beneath  the  pleasant  lamps 


HENRI 


I  sit,  and  wonder  how  you  fare  to-night. 
It's  midnight  now  in  France.    Perhaps  you  find 
Uneasy  slumber;  or  perhaps,  entrenched, 
You  wait  the  night-attack  across  the  rain. 
Perhaps,  my  friend,  they've  made  your  bed  with 

spades ! 

And  I  sit  moody  here,  remembering, 
As  careless  men  and  women  rise  and  go, 
I  never  asked  you  if  you  had  a  wife. 


18 


CONSPIRACY 

I  had  a  dream  of  some  great  house  of  stone, 
Not  dark,  but  open  to  the  northern  ray. 
Beneath  a  cold  and  somber  sky  it  lay, 

Soundless  and  secret,  mournful  and  alone. 

It  had  no  prospect  save  upon  the  sky — 
Set  in  a  great  and  old  and  windy  wood. 
Profound  its  essence  seemed,  but  not  of  good; 

Yet  had  one  asked,  none  could  have  answered  why. 

A  single  door  it  had,  that  faced  the  east, 
Ponderous,  brazen  and  without  a  lock. 
I  thought,  as  stubbornly  I  dared  to  knock, 

That  past  the  sill  a  cryptic  murmur  ceased. 


CONSPIRACY 


And  none  said  "Enter!1'  yet  I  entered  there, 
And  saw  that  house  was  all  one  marble  room, 
Austere,  and  given  to  the  dead,  for  whom 

The  walls  held  chiseled  couches,  scant  and  bare. 

Arctic,  immense,  no  pillar  stayed  that  hall, 
And  from  the  north  the  melancholy  light 
Sank  through  translucent  windows,  vast  and  white, 

On  alabaster  niche  and  frozen  pall. 

Rigid  they  lay,  that  session  of  the  dead, 
From  whom  the  hands  of  Change  seemed  held  a  space, 
With  folded  arms  and  enigmatic  face, 

Marmorean,  as  portion  of  their  bed. 

And  half  I  thought  that  wafts  of  presence  stole 
On  the  urned  air  significantly  still, 
Upon  whose  wintry  crystal  crept  a  chill 

That  fell  not  on  the  body  but  the  soul. 


20 


CONSPIRACY 


That  air  unused,  it  seemed  to  crave  escape 
From  that  sad  hall,  to  be  a  wind  again. 
I  felt  a  terror  of  those  tranquil  men, 

And  feared  the  wisdom  of  each  silent  shape. 

Whereat  I  turned,  importunate,  to  win 
My  way  to  life's  complacencies  once  more; 
Which  done,  behind  the  safety  of  the  door 

Again  I  heard  that  muttering  begin. 


21 


INDIAN  SUMMER 

Come  with  me  to  some  woodland  where  the  chill 
Of  autumn  stirs  with  ecstasy  the  day, 
Or  where  the  tranquil  edges  of  a  bay 

Shoal  to  untroubled  turquoise,  pure  and  still; 

There  let  immortal  Beauty  have  her  will 
In  that  hushed  temple  of  the  year's  delay, 
Crowning  thy  heavens  with  her  holy  ray, 

While  the  heart  leaps  and  eyes  unbidden  fill. 

Assent  thou  not  unto  the  year's  "Alas!" 
Tho  all  that  is  depart  and  leave  no  trace. 

Suffice  it,  ere  the  lonely  vision  pass, 
That  loveliness  be  given  for  a  space, 

When,  set  with  stars,  the  souPs  deep  waters  glass 
The  glory  and  the  sorrow  of  her  face. 


22 


BALLAD  OF  THE  FATAL  WORD 

The  boulders  lie  along  the  downs; 

The  turf  is  hard  between ; 
The  Channel  waves  are  low  this  dawn. 

And  turf  and  wave  are  green. 

Now  three  come  down  from  out  the  wood, 

And  cross  the  verdant  span; 
And  two  have  swords  and  one  a  rose— 

A  man,  a  maid,  a  man. 

Beside  the  sea  the  turf  is  flat, 

With  space  for  one  to  spring 
To  right  or  left,  and  in  or  out, 

With  steel  upraised  to  sting. 


BALLAD  OF  THE  FATAL  WORD 


"Have  at  thee,  Carew!"  cries  the  one: 
"Defend  thyself!  "it  came. 
The  blades  against  the  rising  sun 
Make  sudden  wands  of  flame. 

Now  let  the  timid  curlew  fly 

And  let  the  gull  veer  past, 
For  point  is  set  to  truceless  point 

And  doubt  shall  end  at  last. 

And  long  below  a  windy  sky 

The  dancing  rapiers  blaze— 
The  grating  edge,  the  slender  death 

That  seeks  an  hundred  ways. 

And  neither  hath  the  vantage  yet, 

Nor  do  the  Fates  decide 
Above  those  lists  where  pride  and  youth 

Encounter  youth  and  pride. 


BALLAD  OF  THE  FATAL  WORD 


Then  sudden  on  the  breast  of  one 

There  lies  a  scarlet  stain. 
'Tis  but  a  touch,  yet  at  the  sight 

The  maiden  cries,  "Duane!" 

And  in  that  voice,  for  all  to  know, 

Are  love  and  bitter  fear; 
And  neither  knew,  until  she  cried, 

Which  one  to  her  was  dear. 

And  at  that  voice  the  one  she  named 
Stands  dazed,  for  instant  weal, 

Till  in  that  heart  where  joy  is  crowned 
Slips  the  dethroning  steel. 

He  had  not  struck  had  he  but  known 
How  bliss  strikes  unawares; 

Now  she  is  on  her  knees  at  last, 
With  unavailing  pray'rs. 


BALLAD  OF  THE  FATAL  WORD 


Upon  the  breast  of  him  that  fell 
Her  red  rose. laid  she  then; 

And  unto  him  whose  blade  was  red 
She  never  spoke  again. 


26 


ON  THE  SALE  OF  THE  LOVE-LETTERS 
OF  A  DEAD  POET 

The  fond  and  foolish  lines  writ  for  the  one— 

On  those  the  gaping  many  have  their  will. 

About  the  grave  contending  voices  shrill, 
In  profanation  of  a  trust  undone : 
The  dead  man  sleeps,  and  protest  has  he  none 

On  those  that  soil  his  passion's  memory  still. 

Where  geese  may  crane  before  the  sullied  sill, 
The  heart's  poor  shrine  lies  open  to  the  sun. 

There  is  no  grace  of  shadow  for  this  flow'r, 
No  balm  of  silence  for  this  outraged  love, 

Laid  bare  to  leering  peasants  for  a  doom. 
The  ghouls  are  out  before  the  midnight  hour; 
The  buzzards  gather  in  the  skies  above; 
The  stained  hyena  snuffles  in  the  tomb. 


27 


MEDIATRIX 

Voiceless,  we  hear  thee  plead, 
O  Music,  bond  unseen 
That  God  hath  made  between 

His  silence  and  our  need. 

Tho  Heaven  have  graver  speech 
Than  thy  communing  tongue, 
Yet  save  as  thou  hast  sung 

Its  angels  may  not  teach. 

What  none  shall  ever  say 

With  sound  of  speech,  say  thou, 

Upon  whose  holy  brow 
Falls  now  our  lesser  day. 


28 


MEDIATRIX 


In  thy  compassion  be 
A  refuge  from  the  mirth 
And  babble  of  mad  earth, 

Till  all  are  lost  in  thee. 

From  ways  to  us  unshown, 
Grant  us,  the  dumb  and  blind, 
The  word  that  grief  would  find, 

The  word  that  love  hath  known. 

Thy  voice  of  joy  and  pain 
All  worlds  and  times  allot — 
Which  lacking,  love  stands  not, 

Nor  Heaven  to  lose  or  gain. 


29 


A  DOG  WAITS  HIS  DEAD  MISTRESS 

Lift  not  thy  head  at  some  familiar  sound : 
It  is  not  she,  the  comrade  taken  hence. 
The  solitary  pathway  she  has  found 
Gives  not  upon  the  sense. 

Be  patient,  for  thou  shalt  forget  at  last — 
Forget,  and  in  thy  fashion  be  at  peace: 
Here  in  my  changeless  valley  of  the  Past 
Her  voice  will  never  cease. 

0  happy!  that  thy  brown  and  mournful  eyes 

Look  only  on  the  barriers  that  are ! 
But  mine  remember  how  the  solemn  skies 
Shut  westward  on  her  star. 


A  DOG  WAITS  HIS  DEAD  MISTRESS 


It  is  not  thine  to  wonder,  faithful  friend, 

If  Morning  close  the  vigil  and  the  pain,— 
If  doubt  and  loss  be  given  for  an  end 
And  sorrow  to  our  gain. 

It  is  not  thine  to  hunger  for  her  light, 

And  know,  as  I,  how  long  the  watch  must  be 
Till  the  grey  sentry  hear  upon  the  night 
The  word  that  sets  him  free. 

Nay — lift  no  more  thine  eager  head  to  greet 

Her  presence  in  the  garden  or  the  hall : 
It  is  in  Paradise  the  soundless  feet 
Fare,  if  they  fare  at  all. 


HUMILITY  IN  ART 

What  do  they  know  who  did  not  see  the  Dream? 
O  brother !  tho  men  praise  thee  and  acclaim, 
They  did  not  see  the  vision  and  the  flame, 

Nor  saw  the  wings  of  Beauty  lift  and  gleam. 

Thou  to  thyself  in  silence  shalt  confess 
How  scant  thy  tidings  of  that  angel  are 
That  blazed  upon  thee  like  a  holy  star, 

Shaking  all  Heaven  with  its  loveliness. 

But  thou  has  seen — and  what  thy  tale  to  men? 
The  vouchsafed  Presence  canst  thou  render  whole  ?- 
The  iris  of  her  footprints  in  thy  soul?— 

The  Wind  that  passed  and  cometh  not  again? 


HUMILITY  IN  ART 


Be  meek,  who  saw'st  the  marvel  of  her  face, 
Nor  canst  restore  her  semblance  to  the  throng! 
Bow  down,  who  knowest  how  thy  sorry  song 

Shall  never  be  the  witness  of  her  grace ! 

From  that  high  garden  where  thy  feet  were  led, 
What  evanescent  lilies  dost  thou  bring ! 
Thou  who  hast  heard  the  seas  of  Heaven  sing, 

Return  an  echo  of  their  quiring  fled! 

Is  it  for  these  that  thou  wouldst  take  thy  throne, 
Or  mail  thy  spirit  with  indifference — 
The  stammered  words,  the  music  dulled  by  sense, 

The  tawdry  colors  and  the  mangled  stone? 


33 


AN  AUTUMN  THRUSH 

Like  some  regret  that,  half-forgot, 

Gropes  into  memory, 
Here  in  a  shadow-chosen  spot 

Thy  music  steals  to  me. 

To/soft  for  joy,  too  mild  for  grief, 

Within  the  wood  it  dies- 
Beauty  too  wayward  and  too  brief 
To  grace  our  noonday  skies. 

The  dusk  enfolds  me,  and  the  year 
Stands  at  the  western  gate. 

Thy  song,  the  symbol  of  a  tear, 
Echoes  the  cry  "Too  late!" 


34 


AN  AUTUMN  THRUSH 

Too  late!"  cries  back  the  conscious  heart, 

As  one  that  in  dismay 
Had  seen  the  affronted  gods  depart 

And  could  not  bid  them  stay; 

Nor  could  retain  from  Time's  control 

A  moment  or  a  flow'r, 
Save  when  in  woodlands  of  the  soul 

Such  strains  endure  an  hour. 


35 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

It  is  that  season  when  the  soul  must  know 
The  challenge  of  Transition,  she  who  lays 

On  the  reluctant  days 
The  burden  of  departure  and  its  woe. 

And  all  spring  sowed  in  ecstasy  and  tears 
Reaps  autumn  now  with  sorrow  and  a  smile. 

The  world's  heart  rests  awhile, 
Yet  knows  the  mournful  music  of  the  years. 

The  myriad  wings  beat  south,  the  myriad  flow'rs 
Have  said  farewell  to  sun  and  rain  and  wind; 

Here  sense  and  spirit  find 
That  change  alone  has  empire  of  the  hours. 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 


Nay,  tho  the  gaze  turn  backward  at  the  gate, 
The  going-forth  is  certain.    In  each  breast 

What  mutinies  attest 
The  ceaseless  march  of  all  things  to  their  fate ! 

Unto  what  Land,  on  what  dim  road  compelled, 
Depart,  unlingering,  the  bidden  feet? 

What  memories  repeat 
That  life  is  exile  and  a  home  withheld? 


37 


OCTOBER 

No  voice  hath  said  the  mighty  word  "  Fare  well!" 
What  spirit,  then,  fills  with  a  sweet  despair 

And  swiftly  broken  spell 
The  crimson  gardens  of  the  mourning  air? 

The  clouds  go  forth  on  seas  without  a  port ; 
Back  unto  Earth,  its  mother,  sinks  the  leaf. 

Lone  are  the  days  and  short 
That  hold  at  heart  this  ecstasy  and  grief. 

Now  Sorrow  hath  her  pure  and  perfect  part, 
Turning  great  eyes  on  Beauty's  dear  excess, 

Till,  desperate,  the  heart 
Aches  for  some  wild  and  unknown  happiness. 


OCTOBER 

Tho  Time  have  shown  us  that  it  is  not  here— 
The  joy  that  stirs  our  hunger — still  we  wait. 

Its  iris  in  the  tear 
Gives  Hope  her  haven  and  our  dreams  their  gate. 

Now  find  we,  tho  the  guerdon  be  forgot, 
A  glory  set  beyond  us,  and  a  call 

That  cries  that  we  are  not 
As  clouds  that  vanish  or  as  leaves  that  fall. 


39 


IN  AUTUMN 

Mine  eyes  fill,  and  I  know  not  why  at  all. 

Lies  there  a  country  not  of  time  and  space 

Some  fair  and  irrecoverable  place 
I  roamed  ere  birth  and  cannot  now  recall?— 
A  land  where  petals  fall 

On  paths  that  I  shall  nevermore  retrace? 

Something  is  lacking  from  the  wistful  bow'rs, 
And  I  have  lost  that  which  I  never  had. 
The  sea  cries,  and  the  heavens  and  sea  are  sad, 

And  Love  goes  desolate,  yet  is  not  ours. 
Brown  Earth  alone  is  glad, 

Robing  her  breast  with  fallen  leaves  and  flow'rs. 


40 


IN  AUTUMN 

High  memories  stir;  the  spirit's  feet  are  slow, 
In  nameless  fields  where  tears  alone  are  fruit. 
And  voices  of  the  wind  alone  transmute 

The  music  that  I  lost  so  long  ago. 
I  stand  irresolute, 

Lonely  for  some  one  I  shall  never  know. 


THE  CAGED  EAGLE 

Dost  hear  the  west  wind  calling  thee  afar, 
O  thou  that  hast  beheld  the  night  withdrawn, 
And  past  the  crystal  thresholds  of  the  dawn 

Soared  on  the  pathway  of  the  morning  star? 

O'er  what  cold  forests  and  what  granite  hills 
Were  once  thy  roads,  in  days  remote  from  this? 
What  torrents  knew  thee  and  what  valleys  miss 

The  shadow  of  thy  pinion  on  their  rills? 

Does  no  mate  mourn  thee,  faithful  to  thee  yet, 
Deep  in  the  wilderness  where  men  are  few, 
Whose  wings,  now  tireless  on  the  eternal  blue, 

Would  fold  by  thine  on  some  snow-parapet? 


42 


THE  CAGED  EAGLE 


Or  was  it  thine  the  bitter  coasts  to  know, 
Where  the  profound  Atlantic  thunders  welled 
To  walls  from  which  thine  ageless  eyes  beheld 

The  northern  ocean  foaming  far  below? 

Thy  mate  alone  might  share  thy  towering  flight, 
On  equal  wing  in  lonely  heavens  borne, 
And  rest  with  thee,  waiting  the  distant  morn, 

On  pinnacles  made  silent  by  the  night. 

Here  is  no  sea,  nor  wood  of  western  leaf, 
Nor  mountains  where  the  wind  is  on  the  snow: 
Before  thy  prisoned  gaze  thy  jailors  go, 

Curious,  careless,  knowing  not  thy  grief. 

The  seasons  of  thy  liberty  are  fled, 

And  hours  when  thou  wast  comrade  of  the  cloud. 

Now  vultures  are  companions,  and  the  crowd, 
Long  with  the  vision  of  thy  bondage  fed. 


43 


THE  CAGED  EAGLE 

What  music  here  shall  mingle  with  thy  dreams, 
Or  grace  the  years  in  which  thou  still  must  pine? 
The  song  of  tempest-halting  firs  was  thine, 

And  the  ascending  voice  of  many  streams. 

And  men  have  brought  thee  unto  this  at  length, 
Tho  "Freedom!  freedom!"  seemed  thy  native  cry, 
Lost  are  the  ancient  eyries  on  the  sky, 

The  azure  lanes,  the  sunlight  in  its  strength. 

Yet  look  on  me,  and  one  thy  gaze  shall  find 
Freeborn,  but  doomed  awhile  thy  fate  to  share— 
Whose  wings,  as  thine,  ache  for  a  wider  air 

And  solitudes  august  with  stars  and  wind. 


44 


TIME  AND  TEARS 

Ere  the  bent  skies  were  soft  with  afternoon, 
A  cloud  crept  up  those  arching  walls  of  day 
And  like  a  pall  upon  the  heavens  lay, 

Casting  a  shadow  on  the  fields  of  June. 

Then  the  tyrannic  winds  arose,  and  soon, 
Like  eagles  harrying  a  helpless  prey, 
Drove  its  dark  pinions  on  that  azure  way 

Foretrodden  by  the  white,  belated  moon. 

And  now  far  down  the  royal  West  it  lies, 
Where  its  bright  sisters  in  the  sunset  float, — 

While  the  first  voices  of  the  twilight  call. 
A  dweller  for  a  little  in  our  skies, 
How  still  it  seems,  how  tender  and  remote, 
Like  some  old  grief  that  time  has  rendered  small ! 


45 


TO  AN  OLD  NURSE 

Ever  the  thrush,  on  days  like  these  of  June, 
Sings  to  the  dead,  as  leafy  shadows  veer, 
Swung  by  the  slow  decline  of  afternoon : 
The  dead  folk  do  not  hear. 

There  go  the  unmeaning  ages  as  the  hours; 

Absolved  of  Time,  they  reckon  not  his  flight, 
Compassionately  starred  by  lowly  flow'rs, 
Lies  an  unlifting  night. 

They  are  made  silent  in  a  silent  place, 

Abiding  past  our  gratitude  and  tears ; 
Nor  shall  our  music  touch  with  choral  grace 
Their  sleep's  unnoted  years. 


46 


TO  AN  OLD  NURSE 


Better,  perhaps,  no  voice  importunate 
Deliver  at  the  bourn  of  their  repose 
The  certain  and  immutable  "Too  late!" 
No  living  heart  but  knows. 

Yet  there,  of  those  who  lie  so  dreamless  now, 

Is  one  whose  love  I  knew  in  seasons  past : 
O  warden  of  my  youngest  dreams !    O  thou 
I  reckon  with  at  last! 

How  should  a  child  be  conscious  of  such  care? 

A  heedless  boy  have  gratitude?    Ah,  yes! 
Yet  still  the  heart  of  memory  wakes  aware, 
Sad  for  old  thanklessness. 

And  now,  to  have  thee  know  the  full  regret 

For  thanks  unfelt,  undreamt-of  and  unsaid ! 
Elder  and  lessoned,  now  the  eyes  are  wet 
Above  the  gentle  dead. 


47 


TO  AN  OLD  NURSE 

There  is  no  mound  to  tell  where  thou  dost  sleep 

O  watcher  by  the  bed,  lone  sentinel 
Of  long-gone  midnights  desolate  and  deep, 
I  know  thou  sleepest  well! 


48 


TO  THE  MUMMY  OF  THE  LADY  ISIS 

IN  THE  BOHEMIAN  CLUB,  SAN  FRANCISCO 

No  bird  shall  tell  thee  of  the  seasons'  flight: 

Sealed  are  thine  ears  that  now  no  longer  list. 

The  little  veins  of  temple  and  of  wrist 
Are  food  no  more  for  sleepless  love's  delight, 
And  crumbling  in  the  sessions  of  thy  night, 

Pylon  and  sphinx  shall  be  as  fleeting  mist. 

Bitter  with  natron  are  the  lips  that  kissed, 
And  shorn  of  dreams  the  spirit  and  the  sight. 

Ah!  dust  misused!  better  to  feed  the  flow'r, 
Than  grace  the  revels  of  an  alien  hour, 
When  babe  or  lord  wake  never  to  caress 
The  bosom  where  unerring  Death  hath  struck 
And  milkless  breasts  that  give  the  ages  suck — 
Stilled  in  the  slumber  that  is  nothingness. 


49 


THE  RAMPARTS  AND  THE  ROSE 

The  king  came  back  from  war  with  slaves  and  spoil, 
And  said,  "A  vaster  palace  must  there  be 
Than  where  my  fathers  dwelt."    So  purposed  he, 

And  set  a  captive  nation  to  the  toil. 

And  arch  on  arch  and  wall  by  nightless  wall 
The  royal  eyries  towered  to  the  sun  .  .  . 
The  years  were  long  before  the  task  was  done 

And  captains  feasted  in  the  banquet  hall. 

Then  to  his  youngest  poet  said  the  king, 
" Behold  the  magnitude  of  mine  estate! 
The  courts,  the  lions  graven  at  the  gate, 

The  armies  vassal  to  my  ramparts!    Sing! 


THE  RAMPARTS  AND  THE  ROSE 


"Sing  the  strong  towers  basaltic  and  sublime! 

Sing  the  high  walls  whose  strength  shall  make 
my  fame 

A  star  of  legend  and  immortal  flame, 
And  house  my  princes  to  the  snows  of  Time!" 

And  the  red  lords  kept  silence  for  the  lay; 

The  sceptred  king  smiled  proudly  on  the  queen; 

But  the  mad  poet,  willful  and  serene, 
Sang  of  a  rose  whose  life  was  for  a  day  .... 

Of  all  the  pomp  abides  nor  gate  nor  tow'r; 
But  o'er  the  ruins  bloom  the  roses  still, 
And  desert  folk,  when  the  long  nights  are  chill, 

Sing  yet  the  song  he  fashioned  for  the  flow'r. 


ON  A  PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN 

This  is  the  patient  face  to  which  was  given 
A  touch  of  the  eternal.    Here  is  housed 
Pain  that  is  question,  question  that  is  pain, 
And  on  those  shoulders,  for  our  sake,  was  set 
The  Government.    For  he  was  of  that  line 
Whose  Age  lays  mighty  hands  upon  its  son 
And  leads  him  to  its  morning.    From  those  eyes, 
Steady  with  high  solemnities  of  grief, — 
Weary,  undisillusioned  and  august, 
Gazed  hope,  and  charity,  and  faith  in  man. 
No  fugitive  from  bleak  reality, 
He  faced  his  task,  and  made  the  honest  light 
Sufficient  to  his  need,  and  that  withdrawn, 
He  on  the  deepest  midnight  found  a  star. 
Calm,  tender,  undismayed,  out  of  such  stuff 
Was  framed  a  nation 's  guide  on  wastes  of  war, 
And  on  that  brow,  furrowed,  invincible, 


ON  A  PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN 

Were  laid  the  old  simplicities  of  strength. 
Not  twice,  in  many  years,  shall  Time  so  grant 
An  Elder  Brother  such  as  he,  who  now, 
In  this  presentment  of  a  perished  day, 
Looks  forth  from  deep  and  covenanting  eyes, 
As  one  that  meets  across  the  faithless  years 
The  same  world-sorrow  in  the  gaze  of  Christ. 


53 


THE  TRYST 

Three  are  the  headstones  where  I  paused  to-day 
And  read  the  letters  that  the  lichen  blurred. 
The  afternoon  was  still.     The  fallen  leaves 
Gave  each  its  little  whisper,  trodden  on, 
And  overhead,  in  maple,  beech  and  oak, 
The  autumnal  courts  were  very  beautiful. 

In  that  old  graveyard,  half  a  mile  from  sea, 
I  wandered  pensive,  scanning  here  and  there 
The  crumbling,  marble  archives  of  the  dead— 
They  that  had  built  the  fortunes  of  the  port— 
And  read  how  good  and  great  most  men  had  been, 
And  how  resigned — or  so  the  tablets  claimed — 
Their  wives  had  been  to  sleep  the  final  sleep; 
And  some  had  had  two  wives,  and  one  man  four. 


54 


THE  TRYST 


Then,  as  the  sun  was  low,  and  smouldering  clouds 

Made  an  effulgent  transept  of  the  west, 

I  came  to  those  three  headstones.     "John  Devore, 

Died  August  second,  eighteen  eighty-six," 

The  first  one  read.    The  second:    "Ruth  Devore, 

The  wife  of  John  Devore.     Died  April  ninth, 

In  eighteen  thirty-five."    The  third  stone  said: 

"Allan  Devore,  the  son  of  John  Devore 

And  Ruth,  his  wife.     Died  June  the  twenty-first, 

In  eighteen  thirty-seven,  aged  five." 

And  on  the  last  two  stones  the  moss  was  old. 

I  stood  awhile  and  thought:     "Ah!    John  Devore! 

How  long  they  must  have  seemed,  those  fifty  years ! 

I  do  not  know  what  rest  or  toil  was  yours, 

What  smiles  or  tears,  for  that  half-century; 

But  surely  on  your  silences  they  came, 

And  on  your  quiet  hour,  and  in  your  dreams— 

The  wife  and  little  son.     So  often  thus 


55 


THE  TRYST 

They  must  have  stood,  mute  haunters  of  your  life ! 
Oh!  came  they  hand  in  hand,  and  did  you  weep? 
And  as  the  years  crept  onward,  did  they  wait 
Beside  you  at  your  tasks,  and  when  the  fire 
Was  on  the  hearth,  were  they  not  near  at  hand, 
Drawing  your  gaze  from  sordid  circumstance?— 
The  holy  dead,  august  and  beautiful! 

"And  days  were  years,  and  years  were  weariness, 
And  you  grew  old,  and  they  were  ever  young, 
Reminding  you  from  many  lovely  things, 
From  rose  and  bird  and  cloud  and  pathless  snow, 
Of  all  the  loveliness  that  once  was  theirs— 
Ah !  changeless  still,  and  you  so  changed  at  last ! 
And  the  green  earth  swung  on  beneath  the  sun, 
Noisy  with  life,  and  men  fulfilled  their  ends, 
As  monarchs  died,  and  fleets  and  thrones  were  lost, 
And  great  wars  shook  the  world.    But  peace  was 
theirs, 


THE  TRYST 


Still  warbled  over  by  the  mating  thrush — 
O  refuge  unprofaned !    O  quiet  dust! 

"Did  hunger  for  another  home  and  love 

Gnaw  at  your  heart?    If  so,  you  bore  the  pain. 

Habit's  erasure,  and  the  secret  moth 

In  memory's  dim  arras,  all  that  fight 

Against  the  silent  tenure  of  our  dead, 

They  wrought  in  vain.     So  now  you  slumber  too 

And  are  yourself  a  mystery.    The  year, 

The  month,  the  day,  the  hour,  the  minute  came. 

Ah!    John  Devore!  was  there  a  meeting  then?" 


57 


A  YELLOW  ROSE 

Sad  Autumn  is  the  miser  of  thy  gold; 
But  dead  and  meek 
Thy  petals  speak 
More  than  thy  beauty  told. 

Now  art  thou  sister  of  the  wind  and  dew- 
All  fleeting  things 
Whose  rainbow  wings 
Depart  to  come  anew. 

They  make  a  fountain  of  the  funeral  urn- 
Fragrance  and  tint 
That,  passing,  hint 
They  pass  but  to  return. 


A  YELLOW  ROSE 


We  find  a  myriad  glimmerings  of  Truth; 
Her  perfect  face 
Withholds  its  grace, 
Granting  the  heart  its  youth. 

The  deathless  lyric  ever  on  her  tongue 
Bestows  a  word; 
The  rest,  unheard, 
To  alien  skies  is  sung. 

And  so  by  touch  and  shadow,  glimpse  and  gleam, 
We  know  what  path 
Her  passion  hath 
On  heavens  and  hearts  that  dream. 

And  know  that  change  is  best,  despite  its  pain: 
On  custom's  rust 
And  Beauty's  dust 
Falls  the  renewing  rain. 


59 


A  YELLOW  ROSE 


Wherefore  his  wings,  except  the  swallow  flew? 
Joy's  thrall  is  brief, 
But  that  of  grief 
Is  made  as  transient  too. 

Either  were  not,  were  either  evermore. 
The  flower  soon  dies, 
But  soon  the  sighs 
End,  that  we  sighed  therefor. 


60 


SHAKESPEARE 

Weigh  you  the  worth  and  honor  of  a  king 

So  great  as  our  dread  father  in  a  scale 

Of  common  ounces?    Will  you  with  counters  sum 

The  past  proportion  of  his  infinite? 

TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA 

There  burst  a  mighty  morning  on  the  world, 
After  a  night  so  long  it  seemed  an  age. 
An  age  it  was.    Then,  romping  in  the  sun, 
Came  youthful  giants  down  the  Singing  Way, 
And  one,  the  tallest,  leapt  aside  and  set 
A  magic  trumpet  to  his  lips,  and  blew, 
And  we  who  listen  hear  the  clarion  yet. 

Then,  at  the  sweet  compulsion  of  that  sound, 

The  land  was  thronged  with  visions.   Years  that  were 

Gave  back  their  paladins  and  queens  who  wept. 


61 


SHAKESPEARE 

Kings  cried  to  kings,  extending  shadowy  swords 
O'er  phantom  armies.     Heroes,  councillors, 
Mingled  with  drabs  and  ruffians,  as  the  Past 
A  gleaming  pageant,  swirled  in  rainbow-mist 
Before  the  Present,  soon  to  be  the  same. 
What  an  array  was  there !    What  shifting  forms, 
Children  of  genius  and  a  little  ink! 

The  Trumpeter  is  dust,  but  they  remain 

Part  of  mankind  forever.     As  the  sun 

He  touched  all  things  with  equal  ray,  and  set. 

Like  one  sent  as  a  spy  from  other  worlds, 

To  tell  our  best  and  worst,  he  came.    Judge  you 

How  well  he  saw,  who  seems  a  Titan  boy 

Pelting  the  world  with  jewels  and  with  filth, 

Or  as  a  seraph  wandering  in  the  stews, 

And  half  at  home  there.     This  was  he  so  swift 

To  flatter  kings,  then  jeer  the  sceptred  blood 

With  its  mortality.     And  this  was  he 


62 


SHAKESPEARE 

Who  loved  the  common  man  enough,  perhaps, 
But  failed  not  to  remind  him  of  his  stink. 
He  knew  the  human  heart  as  misers  know 
Their  gold,  and  told  its  currents  for  all  Time— 
The  unswerving  tides  of  Nature  and  her  plan. 
He  was  an  empire,  with  its  plains  and  peaks. 
He  was  an  ocean,  and  the  sky  above. 

Some  are  who  say:  "He  was  content  to  carve 

His  marbles  from  the  quarry  of  the  Past, 

Nor  told  us  of  his  time  nor  times  to  be, 

Concerned  to  please  the  rabble  and  the  court— 

For  all  his  wisdom  missing,  as  we  know 

The  fiery  vision  of  democracy." 

But  this  our  King  of  Song  was  never  come 

To  set  the  wandering  thunders  of  the  world 

To  music  and  to  meaning.     Not  for  him 

The  tribune's  sword,  the  fasces  of  reform: 

Leave  those  to  men  with  hands — our  god  had  wings. 


SHAKESPEARE 


Nor  think  him  lapped  in  self,  who  all  his  days 
Flouted  the  harlot  Fame.    His  faults  were  there, 
But  at  their  worst  as  spots  upon  the  sun. 
He  was  the  race — a  cosmos  in  himself, 
Full  of  small  errors  and  large  excellence. 
Be  proud,  O  men!  that  you  are  of  his  blood, 
Who  well  might  be  this  earth's  ambassador 
To  haughty  worlds  and  stars  of  whitest  fire. 


THE  SHADOW  OF  NIRVANA 

Hast  ever  wakened  when  the  dark  was  deep, 

Nor  known  thyself,  nor  where  thou  wast,  nor  why? 
Unquestioned  then  the  drowsy  soul  may  lie, 

Somewhere  between  reality  and  sleep, 

Nor  feel  the  tides  of  Time  and  matter  sweep- 
Held  for  a  little  from  the  clamorous  "I",— 
Pure  being,  freed  of  memory  and  its  sigh, 

Too  far  in  utter  peace  to  smile  or  weep. 

'Tis  but  a  moment's  freedom :  soon  the  mind 

Hears  the  recalling  bugle,  and  the  brow 
Harbors  the  old  illusion;  soon  the  Wind 

Is  on  the  dust  delivered  unto  dream, 
And  I  am  I  again,  and  Thou  art  Thou, 
Who  then  were  one  in  a  diviner  Scheme. 


THE  RETURN 

The  wholesome  flowers  of  autumn  blow 
And  squirrels  chatter  as  in  joy, 
In  woods  I  rambled  when  a  boy, 

Careless,  and  many  years  ago. 

Old  scents  and  sounds  ....  I  find  no  change, 

Revisiting,  a  wanderer; 

The  trees  and  roads  are  as  they  were, 
Untouched,  and  I  alone  am  strange- 
Strange  even  to  myself!    And  they, 

The  lads  who  roamed  the  wood  with  me, 

Are  changed  from  what  they  used  to  be, 
And  some  are  gone,  and  all  are  grey. 


66 


THE  RETURN 


And  now  awhile  I  watch  the  bird 
That  haunts  the  hollow  past  the  hill, 
And  dream  I  hear  the  echo  still 

Of  voices  I  have  never  heard. 

I  well  recall  the  path  and  pond— 
I  who  have  journeyed  since  so  far, 
Nor  found  by  light  of  sun  or  star 

That  Land  forevermore  beyond. 


MOLOCH 

I  said,  "The  dark  has  come  too  soon." 
I  gazed  across  the  marshy  waste 
To  where,  by  vapors  half-effaced, 

Sank  the  southwestern,  slender  moon. 

The  vapors  brooded  on  the  land, 
Too  big  to  sink,  too  foul  to  float, 
Upcast  like  poison  from  the  throat 

Of  one  great  chimney  near  at  hand. 

The  factory  about  its  base 
Droned  to  the  darkness,  hour  on  hour- 
Squat  dungeons,  huddled  at  its  tow'r, 

As  fearful  of  the  night's  dim  face. 


68 


MOLOCH 

As  fearful  of  the  outraged  night, 
It  glowered  with  unblinking  eyes 
On  marshy  waste,  on  tainted  skies 

Shamed  by  the  desecrating  light. 

I  said,  " Within  those  roaring  walls, 
What  engines  gleam,  what  toils  await? 
There  strength  and  power  serve  their  fate, 

And  there  a  Titan's  hammer  falls. 

"And  surely  there  the  fire  reveals 

What  giants  at  their  service  bend, — 
What  thewed  endurances  attend 
The  sleepless  shuttles  and  the  wheels  .  .  .  .  " 

In  meadow-dews  an  irised  flame 
Stirred  as  the  lucid  morning  broke, 
And  from  those  portals,  black  with  smoke, 

A  thousand  weary  children  came ! 


THREE  SONNETS  ON  SLEEP 

I 

Upon  the  skies  of  slumber  dreams  have  flight, 
And  one  from  gentlest  dreams  may  wake  to  weep. 
The  dark  has  moons  to  sway  its  utmost  deep, 

And  stars  that  touch  the  sleeper  from  their  height. 

Ere  long,  tho  mute  and  liberative  Night 
Thy  soul  and  sorrow  in  her  poppy  steep, 
Her  flowers  the  sickle  of  the  dawn  shall  reap, 

In  melancholy  meadows  of  the  light. 

In  vain  are  Lethe's  dews  upon  the  brow, 
Except  one  find  them  on  its  farther  shore; 

And  he  alone  has  enviable  rest 
Who  sought  for  peace  through  many  tears,  and  now 
Whose  answered  heart  a  rose  is  richer  for, 
In  some  old  graveyard  where  the  robins  nest. 


70 


THREE  SONNETS  OF  SLEEP 


II 

Life  holds  a  different  pact  with  every  man, 

Tho  to  one  sea  her  many  streams  descend. 

To  some  she  stands  a  foe,  to  some  a  friend, 
Devising  each  her  benison  or  ban; 
And  one  is  saint,  and  one  is  courtesan; 

One  labors,  one  is  idle  to  the  end. 

Of  all  her  children  none  shall  comprehend 
Whether  she  strive  in  madness  or  with  plan. 

But  Death  has  one  condition  for  us  all, 

And  he  that  in  the  pyramid's  deep  core 
Lies  with  the  graven  adamant  for  pall, 

In  no  profounder  pit  of  silence  sleeps 
Than  he  who  has  his  grave  by  some  low  shore 
To  which  the  thunder-bosomed  ocean  sweeps. 


THREE  SONNETS  OF  SLEEP 


III 

Death  has  the  final  answer  to  our  cry, 
And  past  our  portals  of  unrest  awaits 
Responsive  to  our  question  of  the  Fates; 

And  he  who  would  attain  that  deep  reply 

Must  seal  his  ears  to  other  sounds,  and  die. 
What  wonder,  if  before  the  midnight  gates 
The  searcher  of  the  riddle  hesitates, 

Uncertain  what  those  ashen  lips  deny? 

What  if  the  hearer  with  the  pleader  cease, 

And  thus  the  timeless  answer  come  unheard? 
So  he  that  sought  for  truth  should  find  it  peace, 

In  those  long  silences  where  none  could  hark 
The  mighty,  indecipherable  Word 
That  fell  unfathomed  on  the  eternal  dark. 


72 


MAN 

This  is  that  brute  which  travailed,  uncontent 
To  bask  with  fellow  creatures  in  the  sun,— 
To  filch  from  earth  his  sustenance,  which  done, 

He  could  have  ease  in  some  cave's  tenement. 

Not  wholly  thus  his  urgent  will  was  spent, 
For  peace  within  its  borders  had  he  none, 
Foresensing  on  a  journey  unbegun 

The  airs  of  that  inscrutable  ascent. 

With  earth  who  bore  him  has  he  made  his  feud, 

And  dreamt  of  other  stars,  and  sought  him  wings, 
Decreed  to  an  august  ingratitude; 

And  for  his  tears  the  Verities  vouchsafe 
That  he  stand  first  among  created  things — 
A  seeker  of  abysses,  and  their  waif! 


73 


ON  A  CITY  STREET 

And  what  the  end  of  these,  the  toil  and  care 
That  earn  but  access  of  to-morrow's  pain? 
They  labor  that  the  morning  rise  again 

On  the  same  dregs  of  pleasure  and  despair; 

That  night  but  summon  to  the  candle's  flare 
The  giddy  moth,  and  slumber  held  in  vain 
Refashioned  hopes  for  the  deluded  brain, 

And  set  fresh  lures  in  life's  betraying  snare. 

Or  do  such  shadows  of  belief  but  seem? 
Could  we  see  all  the  Plan,  we  might  behold 
The  dust  flame  into  seraphim  whose  call 
Were  Time's  requital  for  the  shames  of  old. 
Alas !  we  cannot  know !    Yet  must  we  dream 
Love  is  somehow  the  answer  of  it  all. 


74 


ILLUSION 

I  am  alone  in  this  grey  shadowland, — 
This  world  of  phantoms  I  can  never  know,— 
This  throng  of  seekers  wandering  to  and  fro, 

Moved  by  a  hidden  god's  unheard  command; 

And  tho  we  knew  the  clasp  of  eye  and  hand, 
We  watchers  of  the  planet's  passing  show, 
Yet  soon  the  "now"  Shall  be  the  "long  ago," 

And  soon  the  prow  shall  grate  on  Lethe's  strand. 

Bring  on  the  lights,  the  music  and  the  wine, 
Ere  the  long  silence  give  our  feast  to  scorn ! 

Let  us  forget  all  that  we  dread  we  are, 
And  let  the  mind's  unknown  horizon  shine, 
As  the  heart  graces  with  mirage  of  morn 
The  night  about  its  lost  and  lonely  star. 


75 


ESSENTIAL  NIGHT 

Outreach  and  touch !    But  lo !  thou  hast  not  found ! 

Look  forth !    But  what  the  tidings  of  thine  eyes? 

Taste!    But  His  apple  hath  not  made  thee  wise, 
Nor  hast  thou  heard  His  music  out  of  sound. 
As  light  by  darkness  is  my  spirit  bound, 

And  on  the  soul  are  question  and  surmise: 

The  vision  that  I  take  not  from  the  skies, 
Shall  that  await  in  the  awaiting  ground? 

Why  brood  the  heavens  in  large  indifference? 

And  what  is  all,  and  this  my  spirit  what? 
And  what  these  apparitions  of  the  sense 

That  pass  through  veils  unto  us  blindfold  ones, 
In  horror  of  deep  darkness  lifting  not 

For  stars  nor  moon  nor  the  concealing  suns? 


THE  GLEANER 

Of  all  we  love  or  long  for,  what  can  last? 

The  brief  arbutus  shines  where  shone  the  snow; 

The  panic  winds  o'er  dying  flowers  blow; 
Far  in  the  quiet  woodland  dies  the  blast. 
Soft  on  the  forehead  of  the  hill  are  cast 

The  fleeting  splendors  of  the  afterglow; 

Where  sang  the  brook  the  desert  lichens  grow. 
Who  runs,  shall  find  the  feet  of  Change  are  fast. 

Yet  in  the  solitude  of  all  that  died 

A  Shadow  roams  the  somber  fields,  long  known, 
Where  ashen  gardens  house  the  pilgrim  sands, 
And  mournful  stars  behold  at  eventide 
How  wanders  peaceless  Memory  alone, 

Seeking  in  dust  the  vanished  lips  and  hands. 


77 


CALIFORNIA 

What  little  child  but  knows 
Its  mother's  face  the  fairest?    Is  there  one? 

Tho  long  ago  the  rose 
Have  faded  from  her  cheek,  for  labor  done, 

Vigils,  and  anxious  tears, 
Her  child  sees  not  the  loss,  nor  counts  her  years. 

So  has  each  land  her  brood 
That  cherish  her  in  fond  solicitude, 
And  sing  her  beauty  to  the  stranger's  ears. 

O  mother  of  our  hearts ! 
O  California,  still  fair  and  young! 

The  beautiful  departs, 
And  all  too  soon  the  sweetest  song  is  sung. 


CALIFORNIA 


Thou  hast  not  sorrowed  yet; 
Seldom  for  grief  thy  laughing  face  is  wet. 

May  tears  be  very  far, 
For  on  thy  forehead  is  a  happy  star, 
A  light  of  joy  that  elder  lands  regret. 

Though  gracious  youth  be  thine 

And  virginal  reluctancies  of  heart, 
Yet  hi  thy  gardens  shine 

The  marbles  and  the  poppy- flame  of  Art; 
And  ah !  thy  maiden  blood ! 

But  ecstasies  are  hidden  in  its  flood- 
Red  lips  that  sing  unseen 

The  secret  fires  to  be  thine  own,  O  Queen ! 

And  all  the  scarlet  buried  in  the  bud. 

Let  not  thine  envy  rise 
For  eastern  kingdoms  mournful  with  romance 

Below  thy  tranquil  skies, 
To  lutes  as  sweet  maidens  as  fair  shall  dance. 


79 


CALIFORNIA 

Bower  and  bird  and  tune 
Await  the  lovers  and  their  mystic  moon. 

O  raptures  yet  to  be! 

O  sweet  adventure  that  the  years  shall  see, 
Ambered  in  legend's  everlasting  June! 

Thy  laughing  loveliness 

Compels  to  vision,  and  our  fancies  roam, 
Led  by  a  fragrant  tress, 

To  groves  as  sweet  and  fields  of  meadow-foam, 
Or  timeless  thrones  of  snow, 

Or  azure  inlets  that  the  naiads  know- 
By  some  enchantment  drawn 

Whose  light  is  not  in  the  refusing  dawn, 

Whose  voice  is  not  where  any  rivers  flow. 

What  is  it  we  have  lost, 
And  in  thine  evening  shadow  fain  would  find? 

Pearls  of  a  deep  uncrossed? 
Tidings  entrusted  only  to  the  wind? 


80 


CALIFORNIA 


Between  thy  snows  and  main, 
Somewhere  thou  hast  the  answer  to  our  pain- 

A  secret  to  impart 

Ere  the  last  bird  hide  music  in  her  heart, 
Or  star  and  sunset  meet  beyond  the  rain. 

Dream  as  we  will,  thy  face 
Is  fairer  than  the  vision  that  we  found. 

The  wild,  reluctant  grace 
That  fancy  gives  a  dryad  newly  crowned 

Is  portion  of  thy  lure; 
So  lives  a  forest  flower  that  dares  endure 

In  some  unknown  recess 
Where  only  shadows  touch  its  loveliness, 
And  new-born  waters  chant  to  winds  as  pure. 

O  beautiful  and  glad! 
The  gifts  in  thy  bestowal  seem  too  fair; 

If  any  heart  be  sad, 
Thou  waitest  with  the  balsam  for  its  care; 


81 


CALIFORNIA 


And  if  one  question  thee 
Thy  love  shall  speak,  tho  low  the  answer  be 

As  dip  of  distant  oar, 

Or  conchs  blown  faintly  on  a  haunted  shore — 
Heard  when  the  fog's  white  dusk  is  on  the  sea. 

But  dream  and  memory  meet, 
Wistful  to  know  thy  future  way  through  Time. 

We  see  thy  fearless  feet, 
But  not  the  hostile  mountains  thou  shalt  climb. 

Untried  thy  heart  that  must 
Be  battle-tested  ere  the  cannon  rust; 

And  peace  is  yet  thy  dow'r, 
O  thou  regardless  of  the  patient  Pow'r 
Within  whose  hour-glass  falls  the  nations7  dust! 

So,  crown  thy  careless  head, 
And  bid  the  sun  make  roses  for  thy  breast ! 

Be  thine  eyes  richly  fed 
And  thy  swift  limbs  too  passionate  to  rest! 


82 


CALIFORNIA 


Far  eastward  lies  the  night, 
And  thou  art  beautiful  in  all  men's  sight, 

And  all  men  laud  thy  ways, 
Who  givest  to  the  mercenary  days 
A  time  and  place  for  laughter  and  delight, 


POEMS  ON  THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC 
INTERNATIONAL  EXPOSITION 


Voices  are  crying  from  the  dust  of  Tyre, 
From  Karnak  and  the  stones  of  Babylon — 
We  raised  our  pillars  upon  Seif-Desire, 
And  perished  from  the  large  gaze  of  the  sun. 

EDWiN  MARKHAM 

ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  PANAMA- 
PACIFIC  INTERNATIONAL  EXPOSITION 

I 

Be  ye  lift  up,  O  gates  of  sea  and  land, 

Before  the  host  that  comes, 
Not,  as  of  old,  with  roar  of  hurrying  drums, 
And  blaze  of  steel,  and  voice  of  war's  command ! 
Legions  of  peace  are  at  thy  borders  now, 
O  California,  and  ranks  whose  eyes 
Behold  the  deathless  star  upon  thy  brow 

And  know  it  leads  to  love. 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 


Wherefore,  give  thou  thy  banner  to  the  skies, 
And  let  the  clarions  of  thy  conquest  sound ! 

For  thine  is  holy  ground, 

And  from  thy  heavens  above 
Falls  tenderly  a  rain  of  life,  not  death. 

Thy  sons  have  found 
Again  the  rivers  of  that  Paradise 
And  valleys  where  the  fig  and  olive  grow, 

Wherefrom,  one  saith, 
Man  journeyed  forth  in  tears,  and  long  ago. 

Be  ye  lift  up,  O  gates  of  many  halls, 

That  house,  sublime, 

The  trophies  and  the  nobler  spoils  of  Time ! 
From  where  the  Orient  in  friendship  calls 

Across  her  ocean-roads,— 

From  Africa's  abodes,— 
From  seas  whose  purple  bore  the  keels  of  Tyre,- 

From  islands  west  and  north, — 


88 


THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 

From  lands  that  see  the  white  Andean  walls, — 
From  those  frontiers  of  thunder  and  of  fire 
That  compass  Europe  now,  hath  man  sent  forth 
The  fruitage  of  his  labor  and  his  art. 
Behold  the  greatness  of  his  mind  and  heart 
Who  so  can  strive 

And,  tho  the  earthquake  rive, 
And  War,  with  mailed  hands  at  the  race's  throat, 
Confirm  the  terrors  that  the  prophets  wrote 
And  all  the  stars  have  seen  since  Christ  was  born, 
Can  so  bear  witness  to  the  soul  within ! 
Yea !  from  Earth's  mire  of  ignorance  and  sin 

He  marches  with  the  morn, 
And  lays  a  new  commandment  on  the  sea, 
Bidding  it  set  the  continents  apart, 
And  of  the  trackless  heavens  is  he  free. 
Yet  those  are  but  the  lesser  of  his  dreams, 
When  the  white  vision  of  the  Future  gleams, 

And  Music  in  his  heart 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 

Makes  for  a  while  the  seraph  he  shall  be; 
For  he  would  sway  the  sun's  effulgent  beams, 
Vassal  to  that  diviner  sun,  his  brain, 
And  set  afar  the  years  of  Death, 

And  with  exultant  breath 
Cry  victory  on  matter  and  on  pain. 
Lo !  in  what  sorrow  and  mysterious  mirth 
Do  we  draw  up  against  the  Night  our  plan ! 
O  toil  of  ants,  beholding  the  great  Earth! 
O  Titans'  work,  seeing  how  small  is  man ! 

II 

Audacious  age  of  the  affirming  word, 
The  useful  doubt,  the  kindly  sceptic  gaze, 

Greeting !  for  man  too  long  has  heard 
The  moans  of  war,  too  long  beheld  the  blaze 

Of  cities  on  the  skies 

Or  mirrored  in  the  flood, 
And  Horror  brooding  with  her  moonlike  eyes 


90 


TEE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 

O'er  nations  at  debaucheries  of  blood. 

Let  now  the  veil  be  drawn 
That  hides  from  man  thine  inner  loveliness, 
While  the  young  eagles  of  thy  sciences 
Soar  from  their  pinnacles  against  the  dawn ! 
For  thou  hast  shown  him  how  the  years  transmute 
The  dim  surmisings  of  the  larval  brute, 

And  hast  in  mercy  laid 
A  burden  on  his  weakness  and  his  wings— 
This  moth  for  whom  the  ranging  stars  were  made, 

This  groping  lord  of  things, 
Come  forth  from  night  unknown  to  ends  unseen, 
With  hint  of  what  the  constellations  mean. 

O  man  and  his  Adventure!  From  the  slime 
Of  old  abysses  and  the  hateful  hiss 
Of  dragons,  hath  he  journeyed  forth  to  this, 
Whose  soul  strikes  light  through  Time. 
What  seed  of  what  Design  was  in  that  soul 


91 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 


And  what  its  destined  goal, 

That  he,  once  halt  and  blind, 
Hath  won  the  peaks  above  the  brutish  years, 
And  in  the  astounding  crucibles  of  mind 
Seeketh  the  mighty  answer  to  his  tears? 
O  patient  toiler  in  the  silent  Night ! 
Thy  triumphs  stand  about  us,  balm  and  book, 
Complexities  of  steel  and  engines  bright, 

The  wings  that  serve  our  speed, 

And,  whatso  way  one  look, 
A  myriad  of  shapes  of  human  joy  or  need. 
Here,  too,  the  wonders  of  thy  harvest  shine, 

The  corn,  the  fruit,  the  wine— 

The  bounties  great  and  fair 

That  thou,  with  loving  care, 
Hast  fostered  on  a  thousand  hills  and  plains, 

Trapping  the  distant  rains, 

And  on  the  wilderness 
Leading  new  rills  to  compensate  and  bless. 


92 


THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 


And  here  the  silent  seraphim  of  Art 

Gaze  out  august  above  the  human  streams. 

O  beauty  making  lonelier  the  heart, 

And  sending  forth  the  soul  on  deathless  dreams ! 

Ill 

So^have  we  striven  and  wrought,  that  one  time  were 

The  bestial  folk  of  midden  and  of  cave 

And  now  with  lens  and  alchemy  do  test 

The  wandering  heavens  and  Earth  their  wanderer. 

With  toil  of  tireless  hands, 
How  high  we  build,  this  side  the  awaiting  grave, 
Scorning  awhile  its  answer  and  its  rest! 
Yet,  can  it  be  we  build  upon  the  sands? 
Man's  eye  turns  manward  from  the  mote  and  star, 
And  sees  past  greatness  given  to  the  tomb, 

Nor  knows  what  destined  doom 
Waits,  vigilant,  where  the  Destructions  are. 
Lo !  as  a  mist  that  melts  before  the  day 


93 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 


The  columns  and  the  courts  have  passed  away. 

Advancing  Time,  look  back 
To  where  in  mist  the  broken  pillars  fade, 
The  ghostly  milestones  of  thy  barren  track! 
Who  took  the  blade  have  perished  by  the  blade, 
For  thine  the  years  when  the  old  empires  passed, 
With  wail  of  trumpets  from  a  gulf  of  blood, 

The  annihilating  flood 
Wherein  the  countenance  of  Doom  was  glassed. 

So  rose  they,  realm  by  realm, 
Whose  walls  the  legion ed  grasses  overwhelm. 

So  sank  they,  one  by  one, 
Who  had  gone  forth  in  mail  beneath  the  sun, 

And,  in  their  greed  or  lust, 
Dragged  lesser  nations  at  the  chariot  wheels. 
And  now  the  old  betrayal  of  the  dust 
Hath  found  them,  striking  from  the  anointed  brow 
The  crown,  and  sinking  all  the  intrepid  keels. 
The  desert  holds  the  oppressor  and  oppressed; 


94 


THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 


The  winds  alone  are  great  in  Carthage  now; 
The  lizard  and  the  lichen  have  the  rest.  .  .  . 

What  flaw  in  their  foundations,  and  what  ill 

Upon  their  armored  lords, 

That  ever  down  the  years 
The  Worm  that  feeds  on  nations  had  its  fill? 
Not  all  the  sentried  ramparts  and  the  spears, 
Nor  yet  the  trident  and  the  walling  swords 

Could  stem  its  might. 
The  thousand  high-built  Babylons  of  light 
May  mock  the  stars  no  longer,  nor  their  kings 
Be  more  than  ashes  where  the  desert  finds 
Echoes  of  doom  and  conquest  on  its  winds, 

But  their  names  nevermore. 
What  flaw  in  their  foundations,  and  what  ill 

Upon  the  hearts  they  bore, 
That  now  the  jackal  litters  on  the  hill 

That  once  was  Pharaoh's  throne? 


95 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 


The  question  holds  one  answer  and  but  one, 
Between  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun : 
They  are  the  realms  that  built  on  self  alone ! 

And  we  till  now  have  built  as  even  they ! 

And  dimly  and  in  few  the  vision  stands 

Of  that  new  City  built  not  on  the  sands ; 

And  distant  still  the  sunlight  of  that  Day. 

For  walked  the  Babylonian  again 

Within  our  streets,  once  more  should  he  behold 

The  immeasurable  Care, 
That  ancient  curse  of  poverty  and  gold,— 
The  selfsame  twins  of  luxury  and  pain,— 
The  olden  madness  of  division  where 
The  poor  beg  work,  and  beg  for  it  in  vain, 
And  children  slave,  and  stones  are  given  for  bread, 
While  Mammon  lolls  on  cushions  of  his  fat, 
Whose  glut  not  all  the  toil  of  men  can  sate. 

Amid  the  tumult  and  the  hate, 


THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 


None  hears  the  distant  menace  of  the  tread 

Of  One  whose  hands  hold  darkness  and  the  dust,- 

Whose  reign  is  soon  or  late,— 
Whose  hunger  with  the  monarch's  pomp  is  fed,— 
Who  giveth  kingdoms  to  the  moth  and  rust, 
Till  o'er  the  glory,  fleeting  as  a  breath, 
"Lo!  I  am  come!"  the  Desolation  saith. 

IV 

Behold !  except  Love  build  the  House  of  Man 
In  vain  we  labor  and  in  vain  we  guard  1 

In  vain  shall  Learning  scan 
That  heaven  where  the  hostile  suns  contend 
Or  inward  skies  of  atoms  many-starred, 
If  love  of  man  for  man  be  not  the  end. 

And  idly  Reason  strives, 

If  nevermore  we  find 
The  graver  glory  that  escapes  our  lives. 
Oh !  for  that  hour  when  all  see  clear  at  last, 


97 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 


Who  now  go  blind, 

The  horror  and  the  brutehood  of  the  Past! 
Oh !  for  some  high-noon  of  the  spirit,  when 
The  Radiance  be  given  unto  men 
That  was  the  star  of  heroes  and  the  Grail 
For  which  the  fearless  saints  of  science  died ! 
Oh!  for  the  Light  to  see  in  every  face 
A  mother's  love,  or  father's  tender  care, 
Or  brother's  faithfulness,  or  sister's  grace! 

What  night  of  self  and  pride 
Is  on  us,  that  we  see  not  in  each  one 

The  lover  long-denied,— 
The  dearest  to  us  each  beneath  the  sun? 

The  selfsame  need  is  there 
For  hope  and  trust,  for  love  and  happiness; 

But  still  amid  the  press, 

Blinded,  we  pass  beside 
The  stranger,  and  he  fares  a  stranger  still, 
Nor  see  we  there  the  brother  or  the  sire; 


THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 


And  poor  men  hunger  on  the  wasteful  street, 

And  children  toil  and  tire, 
And  girls  go  downward  to  the  Social  111, 
And  life's  design  of  madness  lies  complete, 
That  Greed  and  Luxury  may  have  their  fill! 

O  dark  and  cruel  State, 
Whose  towers  are  altars  unto  self  alone,— 

Whose  streets  with  tears  are  wet, 
And  half  thy  councils  given  unto  hate! 
Shall  Time  not  hurl  thy  temples  stone  from  stone, 

And  o'er  the  ruin  set 
A  fairer  city  than  the  years  have  known? 
Out  of  thy  darkness  do  we  find  us  dreams, 

And  on  the  future  gleams 
The  vision  of  thy  ramparts  built  anew. 
Mammon  and  War  sit  now  a  double  throne, 
Yet  what  we  dream,  a  wiser  Age  shall  do. 


99 


ODE  ON  THE  OPENING  OF 


V 

Be  ye  lift  up,  O  everlasting  gates 

Of  that  far  City  men  shall  build  for  Man  1 

O  fairer  Day  that  waits, 
The  splendor  of  whose  dawn  we  shall  not  see, 
When  selfish  bonds  of  family  and  clan 
Melt  in  the  higher  love  that  yet  shall  be ! 
O  State  without  a  master  or  a  slave, 

Whose  law  of  light  we  crave 
Ere  morning  widen  on  a  world  set  free ! 

Alas!  how  distant  are, 

To  watchers  of  the  Past, 
Thy  palms  of  peace,  thy  mercy  and  thy  truth! 
Yet  Faith's  great  eyes  look  upward  to  her  star, 

Strong  in  immortal  youth: 
We  know  the  reign  of  Night  shall  end  at  last, 
And  all  the  ancient  evil  lie  undone. 

0  armies  of  the  sun, 
Your  war  is  on  the  darkness  and  its  tears! 


100 


THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  EXPOSITION 


Across  the  gulf  of  years 

We  hear  your  song  and  see  your  banners  shine. 
Know  that  we  too  would  share  your  toils  divine, 
On  self  and  madness  hastening  their  end. 

Lo !  from  our  Age  we  send 
A  music  brief  and  broken  and  august 

To  mingle  with  your  own, — 

A  strain  from  silence  flown, 
Saying  we  too  have  hungered  to  the  sky, 
And  built  from  many  tears  and  humble  dust 
•A  Dream  that  shall  not  altogether  die— 

The  vision  of  that  day 

When  human  strength  shall  serve  the  common  good, 
And  man,  forever  loyal  to  the  race, 
Find,  far  beyond  our  seasons  of  dismay, 

The  guerdon  of  its  grace: 

One  hope,  one  home,  one  song,  one  brotherhood, 
And  in  each  face  the  best-beloved's  face. 


101 


THE  BUILDERS 

The  year  grows  old,  but  Progress  has  no  age : 
Her  flags  go  forward  to  increasing  light ; 
Behind  her  lies  the  night; 
It  is  a  ceaseless  war  her  soldiers  wage, 
And  on  her  great  and  ever- widening  sky, 
"Onward!"  is  still  the  truceless  battle  cry. 

The  future  is  our  kingdom,  and,  altho 

Our  hands  unbuild  the  city  they  have  built, 
Yet  here  no  blood  is  spilt 

Nor  swords  uplifted  for  a  nation's  woe. 

And,  tho  the  columns  and  the  temples  pass, 

Let  none  regret;  let  no  man  cry  "Alas!" 

We  do  but  cross  a  threshold  into  day. 

Beauty  we  leave  behind, 

A  deeper  beauty  on  our  path  to  find 
And  higher  glories  to  illume  the  way. 


102 


THE  BUILDERS 


The  door  we  close  behind  us  is  the  Past: 
Our  sons  shall  find  a  fairer  door  at  last. 

A  world  reborn  awaits  us.    Years  to  come 

Shall  know  its  grace  and  good, 

When  wars  shall  end  in  endless  brotherhood, 
And  birds  shall  build  in  cannon  long  since  dumb. 
Men  shall  have  peace,  though  then  no  man  may  know 
Who  built  this  sunset  city  long  ago. 

Wherefore,  be  glad !    Sublimer  walls  shall  rise, 

Which  these  do  but  foretell. 

Be  glad,  indeed!     For  we  have  builded  well 
And  set  a  star  upon  our  western  skies 
Whose  fire  shall  gr eaten  on  a  land  made  free, 
Till  all  that  land  be  bright  from  sea  to  sea! 


10; 


THE  EVANESCENT  CITY 

Great  on  the  west,  ere  darkness  crush  her  domes, 
Wine-red  the  city  of  the  sunset  lies. 

Below  her  courts  the  mournful  ocean  foams ; 
Above,  no  foam  of  cloud  is  on  the  skies. 

Awhile  I  stand,  a  dreamer  by  the  deep, 
And  watch  the  winds  of  evening  sap  her  walls, 

Till  ashen  armies  to  the  ramparts  sweep 
And  seas  of  shadow  storm  the  gleaming  halls. 

So  dies  that  far  magnificence  of  light, 
A  conquered  splendor  on  a  crumbling  pyre, 

'Mid  fall  of  crimson  temples  from  their  height 
And  ruined  altars  yielding  up  their  fire. 


104 


THE  EVANESCENT  CITY 

So  fades  that  city,  one  with  all  that  finds 

The  nameless  road  that  Beauty  takes  at  last- 
One  with  her  dust  upon  the  twilight  winds 
And  all  her  music  mingling  with  the  Past. 

" Farewell!"  I  whisper  low — then  thrill  to  see, 
Unseen  till  now,  eternal  and  afar, 

Soul  of  dead  day  and  pledge  of  peace  to  be, 
The  tranquil  silver  of  the  evening  star. 


And  even  thus  our  city  of  a  year 

Must  pass  like  those  the  shafted  sunsets  build, 
Fleeting  as  all  fair  things  and,  fleeting,  dear — 

A  rainbow  fallen  and  an  anthem  stilled. 


105 


THE  EVANESCENT  CITY 


A  rainbow  fallen — but  within  the  soul 

Its  deep,  indubitable  iris  burns; 
And  anthem  stilled — yet  for  its  ghostly  goal 

The  incommunicable  music  yearns. 

Only  for  Beauty's  passing  shall  we  trace 
The  heavenly  pathway  that  her  feet  have  trod; 

Only  at  her  departure  seek  her  face— 
We  that  shall  find  it  not  this  side  of  God. 


106 


PERSONAL  POEMS 


FRANK  UNGER 

Thou  sleepest  well!     On  all  our  troubled  earth, 
Weary  of  war,  what  gentler  heart  could  cease? 

O  Savior!  at  the  season  of  Thy  birth 

Thou  hast  remembered  that  Thy  gift  is  peace ! 

A  voice  is  mute  that  had  no  word  of  hate, 

And  one  gone  forth  who  shall  not  come  again— 

A  comrade  true,  a  friend  compassionate; 
Tender  and  brave,  a  soul  without  a  stain. 

Jesus,  whose  word  it  was  that  save  as  we 
Become  as  little  children,  meek  and  mild, 

We  shall  not  enter,  turn  Thy  face  and  see : 
One  waiteth  at  the  door,  a  little  child! 


109 


PERSONAL  POEMS 


TO  XAVIER  MARTINEZ,  PAINTER 

Poet,  whose  song  leaves  nothing  more  to  say 
Except  the  mystery  beyond  all  song, 
To  thee  that  light  and  sight  of  Art  belong 

Which,  searching  Nature  with  a  crystal  ray, 

Reveal  in  iris  the  rejected  clay. 

Visions  august  have  made  thy  heart  too  strong 
To  need  the  fleeting  plaudits  of  the  throng, 

And  thou  hast  seen  the  choral  stars  by  day 

Thy  touch  can  turn  all  things  to  loveliness — • 

A  solemn  beauty,  delicate  and  strange, 
A  secret  that  we  love  too  well  to  guess. 

The  goddess  lingers  long  above  thy  dreams, 
Hearing  beyond  this  world  of  death  and  change, 
The  lyres  that  glimmer  by  immortal  streams. 


no 


PERSONAL  POEMS 


THE  LIGHT-GIVER 

"Let  there  be  light!"  said  One. 
And  from  the  ancient  gulf  of  darkness  strode. 
Harnessed  and  swift  for  their  immortal  road, 
The  horses  of  the  sun. 

And  you  are  child  of  Him, 
Great  Edison,  for  whose  creative  hands 
The  night  is  less  on  all  the  seas  and  lands, 

And  day  itself  less  dim. 

At  evening  from  this  hill 
Gaze  forth,  and  see  the  stars  that  you  have  lit- 
The  human  constellations  that  transmit 

The  message  of  man's  will. 


in 


PERSONAL  POEMS 


Not  Babylon  nor  Tyre 
Might  mock  the  lights  of  Heaven  with  lamps  like 

these, 
Above  whose  radiance  the  Pleiades 

Float  with  unheeded  fire. 

Over  the  earth's  vast  verge 
On  London  now  a  double  darkness  lies; 
But  here  below  unapprehended  skies 

What  tides  of  splendor  surge! 

Your  war  is  on  the  night: 
Shadow  by  shadow  we  escape  its  reign, 
As  from  the  holy  seed  within  your  brain 

The  world  is  sown  with  light. 

Let  not  your  battle  cease ! 
Another  Night  remains,  nor  till  its  sway 
Ends  in  the  morning  of  a  vaster  Day 

Shall  men  have  perfect  peace. 


112 


PERSONAL  POEMS 


Star  after  new-born  star 
Dispels  that  gloom  of  ignorance  and  crime; 
Their  glory  greatens  on  the  brows  of  Time; 

The  dawn  is  not  so  far. 

The  huge  frontiers  of  night 
Dissolve  around  a  liberated  land — 
Pierced  by  the  deathless  ray  within  your  hand, 

O  Captain  of  the  Light! 


PERSONAL  POEMS 
TO  MARGARET  ANGLIN 

IN  THE   GREEK  TRAGEDIES 

She  has  heard  mighty  music  from  the  Past, 
And  deathless  trumpets  from  oblivion, 
And  she  has  seen  the  blood  of  heroes  run 

To  stain  the  morning  of  a  day  forecast. 

How  high,  O  Art,  the  ministry  thou  hast! 
Behold!  the  magic  of  thy  chosen  one 
Has  called  their  shades  from  Lethe  to  the  sun, 

And  ghosts  of  gods  from  heavens  that  could  not  last. 

Black  on  the  arras  of  the  years  that  were, 
What  shadows  of  immortal  armies  stir! 

The  stars  conspire,  and  groping  by  their  light, 
Man  seeks  for  joy  and  peace,  nor  knows  what 

loom, 

Tireless  by  dusk  or  noon  or  deep  of  night, 
Runs  scarlet  with  the  fabric  of  his  doom. 


114 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  VALKYRS 

Horizons  of  the  world,  what  hide  ye  from  our  sight? 
What  Fates  sing  now  from  darkness  their  ancient 

battle-song? 
Are  those  the  armored  Valkvr«  men  hear  across  the 

night? 

What  god  hath  set  the  trumpet  to  lips  austere  and 
strong? 

The  deeps  and  heights  are  shaken.    The  walls  of  the 

Dark 

Tremble  with  all  their  stars,  and  all  stars  reel. 
Shadows  from  outer  night  draw  closer  now  to  hark 
The  echo  of  what  thunders,  the  music  of  whose 
steel? 


117 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


Whose  is  the  war?    Who  first  hath  drawn  the  sword? 
"A  king!"  cry  the  Valkyrs,  "whose  rule  is  on  the 

race! 

Woe  to  the  many,  who  hold  one  man  their  lord ! 
For  one  hath  loosed  the  tempest,  and  hid  the 
heavens'  face! 

" War's  gate  is  down,  and  Thor!    Thor  is  forth! 

He  hath  thrown  off  old  harness,  to  forge  him 

weapons  new. 
The  gaunt  guns  toll,  sounding  from  south  to  north, 

To  call  young  men  to  doom,  till  young  men  are  few. 

"The  old  men  shall  call,  and  the  young  men  shall 

hear, 

Hear  and  set  out,  who  never  shall  come  back— 
They  that  might  have  sown  in  the  spring  of  the  year, 
They  that  now  shall  reap  the  bitter  grain  and 
black. 


118 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


"The  tides  of  doom's  sea  are  mounted  unto  flood; 
The  long  dykes  are  down,  sundered  at  one  man's 

breath. 

All  the  youth  of  Europe  shall  render  of  their  blood. 
All  the  youth  of  Europe  shall  sit  at  dice  with 
Death. 

"Ravens,  appear!  and  come,  ye  birds  of  prey 

From  high  and  lonely  places,  for  now  is  food  for  all. 

Wolves  of  the  night,  be  early  on  your  way ! 
The  fold  is  left  open;  they  guard  another  wall. 

"Thor!    Thor  is  forth!    Hark  to  his  ocean- voice! 

The  blood  of  the  world  makes  scarlet  his  hands. 
Thor  is  forth  upon  the  dark!    Sisters,  rejoice! 

A  king  hath  loosed  the  god  whose  sword  is  on  the 
lands!" 


119 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  DREAM  OF  WILHELM  II 

He,  a  colossus  towering  toward  the  spheres, 
With  tyrant  shadow  casting  triple  night 
On  Europe,  saw  with  dominating  sight 

The  great  world-caldron  seethe  with  futile  tears, 

And  heard  as  with  a  god's  commending  ears 
The  tread  of  armies  whose  resistless  might 
Should  stay  mankind's  advancement  to  the  light, 

But  throne  his  dynasty  a  thousand  years. 

Then  rose  he  from  the  conquered  globe  on  wings 
Such  as  in  vision  serve  the  will  of  kings, 
Till  gazing  from  the  violated  skies 

He  saw,  below  his  battles'  smoky  bars, 
With  flaming  France  and  Russia  for  its  eyes, 
Earth  like  a  skull  that  glared  upon  the  stars. 


120 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


EARTH'S  ANTHEM 

The  mighty  tempest  of  the  world- war  breaks— 
That  Armageddon  that  our  sires  foretold. 
This  is  the  lash  the  lords  of  Europe  hold 

To  scourge  their  peoples,  and  the  battle  takes 

Frontiers  of  flame  and  thunder,  and  Earth  makes 
A  melancholy  music,  bleakly  rolled 
On  fateful  heavens  menacing  and  cold, 

Where  Shadows  gather  and  the  Red  Star  shakes. 

The  vulture's  beak  is  whetted  for  the  dove. 
In  vain  we  build  our  temples,  and  in  vain 
We  tend  the  lamps  of  Science  and  of  Love, 
When  on  the  flame  and  consecrated  oil 
War,  in  a  vast  and  headlong  hurricane, 

Launches  the  Night  in  which  no  man  shall  toil. 


121 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


TO  GERMANY 

I 

Beat  back  thy  forfeit  plow-shares  into  swords: 

It  is  not  yet,  the  far,  seraphic  dream 

Of  peace  made  beautiful  and  love  supreme. 
Now  let  the  strong,  unweariable  chords 
Of  battle  shake  to  thunder,  and  the  hordes 

Advance,  where  now  the  famished  vultures  scream. 

The  standards  gather  and  the  trumpets  gleam; 
Down  the  long  hill-side  stare  the  mounted  lords. 

Now  far  beyond  the  tumult  and  the  hate 
The  white-clad  nurses  and  the  surgeons  wait 
The  backward  currents  of  tormented  life, 
When  on  the  waiting  silences  shall  come 
The  screams  of  men,  and,  ere  those  lips  are  dumb, 
The  searching  probe,  the  ligature  and  knife. 


122 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"..> 

II 

Was  it  for  such,  the  brutehood  and  the  pain, 
Civilization  gave  her  holy  fire 
Unto  thy  wardship,  and  the  snowy  spire 

Of  her  august  and  most  exalted  fane? 

Are  these  the  harvests  of  her  ancient  rain 
Men  reap  at  evening  in  the  scarlet  mire, 
Or  where  the  mountain  smokes,  a  dreadful  pyre, 

Or  where  the  warship  drags  a  bloody  stain? 

Are  these  thy  votive  lilies  and  their  dews, 
That  now  the  outraged  stars  look  down  to  see? 

Behold  them,  where  the  cold,  prophetic  damps 
Congeal  on  youthful  brows  so  soon  to  lose 
Their  dream  of  sacrifice  to  thee — to  thee, 
Harlot  to  Murder  in  a  thousand  camps! 


123 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


III 

Was  it  for  this  that  loving  men  and  true 
Have  labored  in  the  darkness  and  the  light 
To  rear  the  solemn  temple  of  the  Right, 

On  Reason's  deep  foundations,  bared  anew 

Long  after  the  Caesarian  eagles  flew 

And  Rome's  last  thunder  died  upon  the  Night? 
Cuirassed,  the  cannon  menace  from  the  height; 

Armored,  the  new-born  eagles  take  the  blue. 

Wait  not  thy  lords  the  avenging,  certain  knell- 
One  with  the  captains  and  abhorrent  fames 
The  echoes  of  whose  conquests  died  in  Hell?— 

They  that  have  loosened  the  ensanguined  flood, 
And  whose  malign  and  execrable  names 
The  Seraph  of  the  Record  writes  in  blood. 


124 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 

IV 

From  gravid  trench  and  sullen  parapet, 

Profane  the  wounded  lands  with  mine  or  shell! 

Turn  thou  upon  the  world  thy  cannons'  Hell, 
Till  many  million  women's  eyes  are  wet! 
Ravage  and  slay !    Pile  up  the  eternal  debt ! 

But  when  the  fanes  of  France  and  Belgium  fell 

Another  ruin  was  on  earth  as  well, 
And  ashes  that  the  race  shall  not  forget. 

Not  by  the  devastation  of  the  guns, 

Nor  tempest-shock,  nor  steel's  subverting  edge. 
Nor  yet  the  slow  erasure  of  the  suns 

The  downfall  came,  betrayer  of  thy  trust! 
But  at  the  dissolution  of  a  pledge 

The  temple  of  thine  honor  sank  to  dust. 


125 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


V 

Make  not  thy  prayer  to  Heaven,  lest  perchance, 
O  troubler  of  the  world,  the  heavens  hear! 
But  trust  in  Uhlan  and  in  cannoneer, 

And,  ere  the  Russian  hough  thee,  set  thy  lance 

Against  the  dear  and  blameless  breast  of  France ! 
Put  on  thy  mail  tremendous  and  austere, 
And  let  the  squadrons  of  thy  wrath  appear, 

And  bid  the  standards  and  the  guns  advance ! 

Those  as  an  evil  mist  shall  pass  away, 

As  once  the  Assyrian  before  the  Lord: 
Thou  standest  between  mortals  and  the  day, 

Ere  God,  grown  weary  of  thine  armored  reign, 
Lift  from  the  world  the  shadow  of  thy  sword 
And  bid  the  stars  of  morning  sing  again. 


126 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BETRAYAL 

I 

Strange,  that  the  race  relinquish  to  the  hands, 
Mailed  and  relentless,  of  the  haughty  few 
Its  destinies !    The  pomps  Assyria  knew 

Moan  to  the  twilight  of  the  bitter  sands 

With  lips  of  stone,  and  in  the  desert  stands 
No  record  of  the  millions  that  she  slew. 
There  gleams  no  throne  in  Time's  august  review 

But  sent  a  sword  upon  the  patient  lands. 

On  Europe  now,  as  once  on  Babylon, 
The  vulture  bands  go  forth  beneath  the  sun, 
And  ravens  hover  at  the  flanks  of  war 
With  clamor  echoless  and  desolate, 
As  tho  each  bird  cried  hoarsely  to  its  mate, 
"The  kings  are  at  their  bloody  work  once  more!" 


127 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


II 

Why  will  ye  suffer  it,  and  give  to  kings 

The  reins  of  government,  O  brothers  blind? 

Upon  their  roads  of  empire  ye  shall  find 
Despair  and  agony  and  shattered  things. 
Their  suns  conspire;  the  throne's  deep  shadow 
swings 

Its  midnight  on  the  race's  heart  and  mind; 

Your  homes  they  open  to  the  rain  and  wind, 
Your  portals  to  the  bat's  familiar  wings. 

Their  feet  take  hold  on  Hell,  and  on  their  path 
Lie  Beauty  violate  and  Love  profaned; 

Their  armies  trample  and  their  chariots  ride 
On  harvests  and  the  hearth-stone,  and  your  wrath 
Wakes  not,  nor  hath  your  purblind  strength 

arraigned 
Their  idiot  "honor"  and  insensate  pride! 


128 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BELGIUM,  AUGUST,  1914 

O  Earth!     O  star  of  sorrow!    at  thy  breast 
What  vampires  have  had  sustenance  of  thee ! 
From  thy  dark  womb  what  furies  have  gone  free 

And  in  thy  shadowy  lap  what  dragons  nest ! 

O  beautiful  as  thou  art  all  unblest ! 

From  thee  so  fair  shall  births  so  monstrous  be, 
And  in  thy  smile  must  man  forever  see 

A  hidden  hatred,  endless  and  suj  pressed? 

How  harmless  are  thy  serpents,  matched  with  man ! 

How  gentle  are  the  wars  of  fen  or  wave, 
Beside  this  other  that  thy  children  plan! 

Across  the  dykes  of  mercy  sweeps  the  flood; 
Butcher  and  beast,  the  hordes  of  Odin  rave, 
Whom  War  hath  blinded  with  the  dust  of  blood ! 


129 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


ENGLAND,  AUGUST,  1914 

Southward  again  on  ancient  roads  of  war, 
Beyond  the  Narrow  Seas  thy  legions  flow, 
Where  wait  the  battle-fields  of  long-ago, 

Ramparts  thy  lion-flag  hath  known  before, 

And  cities  where  they  crowned  thee  conqueror. 
Depart  the  youthful  ranks  that  cannot  know 
As  yet  the  power  and  malice  of  the  foe, 

But  know  what  vow  those  perjured  lips  forswore. 

Thy  war  is  for  the  sanctity  of  pledge— 
Whether  the  word  of  man  to  man  endure, 

Or  that  his  bond  be  as  a  rope  of  sand. 
Forth !  till  the  world  be  cleansed  of  sacrilege, 
And  those  antique  foundations  rest  secure 
On  which  the  pillars  of  the  Temple  stand ! 


130 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


TO  THE  WAR-LORDS 

I 

Be  yours  the  doom  Isaiah's  voice  foretold, 
Lifted  on  Babylon,  O  ye  whose  hands 
Cast  the  sword's  shadow  upon  weaker  lands, 

And  for  whose  pride  a  million  hearths  grow  cold ! 

Ye  reap  but  with  the  cannon,  and  do  hold 
Your  plowing  to  the  murder-god's  commands; 
And  at  your  altars  Desolation  stands, 

And  in  your  hearts  is  conquest,  as  of  old. 

The  legions  perish  and  the  warships  drown ; 

The  fish  and  vulture  batten  on  the  slain ; 
And  it  is  ye  whose  word  hath  shaken  down 

The  dykes  that  hold  the  chartless  sea  of  pain. 
Your  prayers  deceive  not  men,  nor  shall  a  crown 

Hide  on  the  brow  the  murder-mark  of  Cain. 


131 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


II 

Now  glut  yourselves  with  conflict,  nor  refrain, 
But  let  your  famished  provinces  be.  fed 
From  bursting  granaries  of  steel  and  lead ! 

Decree  the  sowing  of  that  deadly  grain 

Where  the  great  war-horse,  maddened  with  his  pain, 
Stamps  on  the  mangled  living  and  the  dead, 
And  from  the  entreated  heavens  overhead 

Falls  from  a  brother's  hand  a  fiery  rain. 

Lift  not  your  voices  to  the  gentle  Christ: 
Your  god  is  of  the  shambles!    Let  the  moan 
Of  nations  be  your  psalter,  and  their  youth 
To  Moloch  and  to  Bel  be  sacrificed! 
A  world  to  which  ye  proffered  lies  alone 
Learns  now  from  Death  the  horror  of  your 
truth. 


132 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


III 

How  have  you  fed  your  people  upon  lies, 

And  cried  "Peace!  peace!"  and  knew  it  would 

not  be ! 
For  now  the  iron  dragons  take  the  sea, 

And  in  the  new-found  fortress  of  the  skies, 

Alert  and  fierce  a  deadly  eagle  flies. 
Ten  thousand  cannon  echo  your  decree, 
To  whose  profound  refrain  ye  bend  the  knee 

And  lift  into  the  Lord  of  Love  your  eyes. 

This  is  Hell's  work:  why  raise  your  hands  to  Him, 
And  those  hands  mailed,  and  holding  up  the 

sword? 

There  stands  another  altar,  stained  with  red, 
At  whose  basalt  the  infernal  seraphim 
Uplift  to  Satan,  your  conspirant  lord, 

The  blood  of  nations,  at  your  mandate  shed. 


133 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  WAR-GOD 

Behold  the  pandar  of  Oblivion — 
This  idiot  monster,  holding  hate  his  law! 
It  is  for  him  that  Life  must  stand  in  awe, 

For  him  that  Art  hath  cringed  and  Science  done 

Whoredom  among  the  tribes,  refusing  none. 
In  his  red  day  our  scruples  are  as  straw: 
The  nations  gather  at  his  word,  and  draw 

His  chariot,  refulgent  as  the  sun. 

The  stars  of  many  masterdoms  have  set, 
But  that  star  sets  not  ever,  and  the  light 

That  fell  on  Troy  is  cast  on  Europe  now; 
And  as  of  old  the  mothers'  eyes  are  wet, 
And  the  brute  god,  girded  with  steel  and  night, 
Above  Time's  charnel  scowls  with  armored 
brow. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  LITTLE  FARM 

Along  the  vague  horizon,  vapor-bound, 
A  monstrous  muttering  forever  broke, 
As  tho  the  Titans  at  their  council  spoke, 

Far  off,  or  in  some  cavern  underground; 

But  at  the  little  farm  there  was  no  sound, 
Save  when  a  low  and  idiot  laughter  woke. 
Ashes,  till  then  a  home,  sent  up  their  smoke: 

A  raven  dozed  upon  an  eyeless  hound. 

One  laughed  whom  men  had  fettered  to  a  tree. 
Above  his  head  a  broken-hilted  knife 

Pinned  a  small  hand  that  clasped  a  bit  of  string. 
And  still  he  laughed,  nor  turned  his  gaze  to  see 
The  stripped  and  ravished  body  of  his  wife. 
A  weathered  sign  announced :  No  Trespassing. 


135 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  HOUSE  OF  WAR 

Whose  heart  is  fed  on  vision,  and  whose  mind 

With  portent  of  a  Golden  Age  to  be? 

Let  him  look  forth  on  Europe  and  the  sea, 
As  eagles  of  destruction  ride  the  wind; 
But  higher  must  his  soul  ascend  to  find 

What  star  of  peace  the  future  may  decree : 

Her  ray  is  deep  in  night's  infinity, 
And  men  deny  her,  and  the  heavens  are  blind. 

Seek  not  her  pathway  where  the  airship  flies 
And  Death  hath  station  on  the  nearer  skies, 
Smiling  on  empires  that  his  feet  have  trod, 
Where  shone  the  sword  and  now  the  cannon 

shines, 

As  the  slow  Fates,  from  gulfs  without  a  God, 
Swing  up  the  sun  of  murder  on  the  Signs. 


136 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING" 

The  royal  word  goes  forth,  and  armies  do 
The  work  of  devils.    Agony  and  waste 
Are  on  the  world,  and  the  grim  legions  haste 

On  the  old  war-roads  that  the  Caesars  knew. 

Still  gleams  the  dreadful  stain  of  Waterloo, 
On  Time's  accusing  record  unerased; 
Gone  are  the  ramparts  that  the  Romans  faced, 

But  these  the  heavens  where  their  eagles  flew. 

Below  the  bleak  and  slowly  shifting  stars, 
Man  turns  him  in  his  madness,  to  reveal 
His  ancient  folly  and  his  ancient  crime, 
And  on  the  tragic  breast  austere  with  scars 
Re-girds  the  mail,  and  draws  the  hilted  steel, 
Cold  from  the  twilight  battlefields  of  Time. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


TO  BELGIUM 

As  Rome  beat  down  the  kingdoms,  one  by  one, 
With  sword  invincible,  until  her  sway 
Held  from  the  rise  to  set  of  Europe's  day, 

So  to  his  war-adventure  leapt  the  Hun, 

And  as  the  Roman  wrought,  so  had  he  done, 
Were  not  thy  sons  as  lions  on  his  way. 
Granite  he  found  thee,  who  had  thought  thee  clay, 

O  nation  clothed  as  with  the  noonday  sun ! 

O  barrier  to  the  tempest !    Faithful  wall 
That  held  the  armored  avalanche  a  space ! 

O  little  dyke  against  so  great  a  flood! 
Thou  sentry,  whom  no  midnight  could  appall! 
Thou  Christ  of  nations,  giving  to  the  race 
That  respite  purchased  with  thy  holy  blood ! 


138 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  TWO  PRAYERS 

"O  Christ  of  peace,  grant  that  he  live!"  she  cried— 
The  widow-mother  kneeling  ere  the  day. 
"Oh!  give  thine  angels  charge  upon  his  way, 

Mine  only  son,  my  beautiful,  my  pride! 

And  grant  him  life,  who  for  our  sake  hast  died!" 
So  through  the  lonely  hours  she  knelt  to  pray, 
Where  the  poor  candle  cast  its  friendly  ray 

And  overhead  the  dark  lay  dumb  and  wide. 

Not  so  the  midnight  stood  with  him  for  whom 
Her  voice  arose:  there  shrank  the  harried  gloom 
From  searchlights  and  the  cannon's  flaming  breath, 
As  he,  slow  writhing  in  the  crimson  slime 
Through  the  mad  torment  of  delaying  time, 
Prayed  with  insatiable  lips  for  death. 


139 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


AFTERMATH 

Slowly  among  the  wounded  and  the  slain 
The  gleaners  take  the  harvest  of  the  kings, 
But  harvest-song  no  joyous  maiden  sings, 

And  crimson  fingers  lift  a  crimson  grain. 

Where  darkness  and  the  powers  of  darkness  reign, 
They  bend  above  unutterable  things, 
As  far  away  the  restless  searchlight  swings 

Its  ghastly  ray  along  the  burdened  plain. 

Well  seems  it  that  they  wear  a  cross  of  red, 
But  better  seems  it  that  this  earth  should  bear 

That  blazon  in  the  concourse  of  the  stars, 
(Ere  the  Night  conquer  and  the  sun  fall  dead) 
And  'mid  dark  Signs  and  warring  heavens  glare, 
Disastrous,  with  the  bloody  light  of  Mars. 


140 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  WAR-MACHINE 

Behold  the  monster  that  their  hands  have  made ! 

Behold  the  mindless  god  of  steel  and  lead 

To  whom  the  unhappy  sons  of  man  are  fed! 
His  priests  in  gold  and  scarlet  stand  arrayed; 
His  altar  reeks;  the  lamp  within  the  shade 

Glows  with  a  quenchless  and  malignant  red. 

O  poisoned  wine  and  pestilential  bread ! 
O  faith  discomfited  and  hope  betrayed! 

His  music  is  a  weeping  in  the  dark, 
And  hiss  of  knotted  serpents,  and  the  moan 
Of  men  that  bleed  upon  his  altar-stone, 

Where  the  blind  seraphim  of  Pain  and  Death 
Stand  in  the  shadow  right  and  left,  nor  mark 
The  incense  coiling  like  a  dragon's  breath. 


141 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BOMBARDMENT 

The  womb  of  steel,  with  thunder  and  a  moan, 
Released  its  burden,  and  the  screaming  shell 
Swung  up  in  flame  above  the  heavens'  Hell. 

Remote,  on  sounding  skies  till  then  unknown, 

Where  once  the  vulture  circled,  high  and  lone, 
Or  Alpine  eagles  had  their  citadel, 
That  iron  offspring  took  the  dark,  then  fell 

As  falls,  unheralded,  the  meteor-stone. 

In  that  domain  of  majesty  and  night 
There  stood  no  haven  for  its  evil  flight: 
Its  goal  was  horror,  and  the  goal  afar. 
Ere  long,  where  huddling  babes  and  women 

wept, 
And  wounded  men  were  couched,  and  no  man 

slept, 
Deep  in  the  midnight  city  sank  that  star. 


142 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


GERMANY 

As  he  who  shod  the  horses  of  the  sun, 
She  made  her  desecrated  forges  peal 
To  monstrous  births  of  cannon  and  of  keel, 

Where  fires  deliver  and  the  hammers  stun; 

And  when  the  daylight  and  the  toil  were  done, 
Upon  the  breast  of  Peace  she  set  her  heel, 
Loosing  the  headlong  avalanche  of  steel, 

With  lance  on  lance  and  gun  on  cruel  gun. 

As  Sampson  in  his  blindness  hath  she  snapt 
The  pillars  of  the  temple  of  the  light, 

Drawn  down  in  ruin  upon  Europe's  head. 
To  heavens  in  the  smoke  of  conquest  wrapt 
There  cry  unheeded  voices  in  the  night, 
From  new-made  ramparts  builded  of  the  dead. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  DEATH-CHORDS 

What  antiphon  is  this,  with  Earth  to  Hell 
Rendering  moan  for  moan?    Alas  the  cries 
That  from  red  mouths  of  many  wounds  arise 

Above  the  bass  of  cannon  and  the  knell 

Of  tolling  mortal  and  infernal  shell ! 
Far  upon  Europe's  overshadowed  skies 
The  deep  vibration  of  that  anthem  dies, 

When  falls  the  night  with  Death  for  sentinel. 

This  is  the  music  of  thy  traitor  kings, 
O  world  betrayed,  and  this  the  cruel  song 

Thou  singest  in  the  heavens  of  love  and  light  1 
Fold,  fold  across  the  lands  thy  mighty  wings 
Of  dawn  and  sunset:  thou  hast  sung  too  long! 
Draw  round  thy  breast  the  everlasting  Night ! 


144 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  FEAST 

Never,  O  Death,  was  such  a  wine  as  this 

Given  thine  everlasting  thirst  to  drain,— 

Never  a  vintage  of  so  royal  stain, 
Crushed  from  the  youth  of  Europe  for  thy  bliss. 
At  these  thine  orgies  Hate  and  Madness  kiss, 

And  Horror  crowns  the  frantic  brows  of  Pain ; 

Garlands  of  serpents  are  thy  flowery  chain 
And,  for  thy  music,  their  infernal  hiss. 

Drink  deep :  such  banquet  shall  not  be  again. 
Drink  till  the  lees  are  cloudy  in  the  cup, 

And  in  thy  veins  a  scarlet  venom  sings! 
Then,  drunken  with  the  doom  of  myriad  men, 
Kneel,  and  at  ruined  altars  offer  up 
Thy  deep  thanksgiving  to  the  power  of  kings ! 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 

WAR'S  MUSIC 

As  harp-strings  now  the  swept  horizons  roar. 
The  bleak,  tremendous  music  of  the  guns 
Seems  as  the  challenge  of  contending  suns 
When  past  Orion's  sword  the  heavens  war. 
The  sound  is  of  a  sea  whose  waves  outpour 
Destruction,  and  whose  wind  of  ruin  runs 
With  thunder,  where — a  voice  whose  onset  stuns— 
Groans  a  red  surf  upon  a  crimson  shore. 

Are  these  the  tidings  of  the  race's  doom 
The  throats  of  cannon  utter  to  the  world? 

The  mortar  tolls  like  Death's  prophetic  bell, 
And  tongues  of  terror  cry  across  the  gloom, 
Where  the  great  shells  descend  like  chariots  hurled 
From  midnight,  on  some  battlefield  of  Hell. 


146 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  AEROPLANE 

Afar  and  high,  on  wings  that  feared  no  wind, 
The  intrepid  dragon  of  espial  flew, 
Unseen  at  last  within  the  housing  blue, 

Arid  o'er  dim  provinces  at  last  inclined, 

Stared  from  the  pinnacles  of  noon  to  find 
The  plan  and  purpose  of  the  war's  review— 
What  counsels  launched,  what  jeopardies  with 
drew. 

The  groping  armies,  ominous  and  blind. 

Then  honied  the  watcher  to  its  armored  nest, 
Down  the  cold  dome  immense  and  desolate, 

Where  clouds  beleaguer  and  the  sunlight  chills- 
Death's  herald,  bearing  to  the  anxious  west 
The  secret  of  the  captains,  and  the  fate 
Of  legions  hidden  in  the  deadly  hills. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BEFORE  DAWN 

"Tell  us,  O  Watchman,  tell  us  of  the  Night! 
What  tidings  from  the  world's  high  parapet?" 
"There  is  no  pausing  nor  cessation  yet 

Where  the  lords  gather  and  the  legions  fight. 

Mars  in  his  House  of  Blood  hath  sovran  light 
Above  the  ashes  of  a  Day  long  set, 
And  with  his  scarlet  dew  the  land  is  wet, 

And  the  red  stars  gaze  with  despotic  sight." 

So  rang  the  message  that  they  bent  to  hark, 
As  from  his  height  the  western  Sentinel 

Beheld  the  Signs  malignant  in  their  place, 
And  heard  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  dark 
The  solemn  sound  of  cannon,  as  tho  Hell 
Tolled  forth  the  doom  and  burial  of  the  race. 


148 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  TURK 

Behold  him!  the  abominable!  the  beast! 
The  butcher  of  the  race,  malignly  red 
With  blood  of  helpless  ones  from  heel  to  head ! 

Behold  this  infamy  by  Fate  released 

On  gentler  nations  given  as  a  feast 
Where  vultures  batten  after  he  has  fed, 
And  trampled  bosoms  of  the  tortured  dead 

Pave  his  dominion  of  the  ravished  East. 

Over  the  rondure  of  the  world  a  cry 

Goes  forth  against  him,  as  Armenia's  breast 

Implores  a  hundredth  time  for  God  to  save— 
A  bleak  and  dreadful  voice  upon  the  sky 
To  North  and  South,  and  in  the  avenging  West 
An  echo  of  the  moan  that  Belgium  gave. 


149 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  NEW  KINGS 

Not  gold,  but  steel,  O  Bethlehem!  they  bring- 
Not  myrrh,  but  powder;  nor  may  shepherds  find 
Wafture  of  frankincense  upon  the  wind: 

The  breath  of  cannon  has  a  sharper  sting! 

Far  in  the  south  awakes  a  muttering 

That  tells  a  worship  of  a  grimmer  kind, 
And  soon  an  older  god  shall  be  enshrined 

Where  once  the  Magi  found  an  infant  King. 

What  the  repulsed  Crusader  could  not  hold, 

Take  thou,  O  Russia!  in  a  nobler  cause! 
And  on  the  pathway  of  the  kings  of  old 

Advance,  with  guns  that  sound  the  Moslem  knell 
And  northern  steel  and  ranks  that  never  pause, 
Led  to  Christ's  manger  by  the  Star  of  Hell! 


150 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


TO  FRANCE 

0  daughter  of  the  morning!  on  thy  brow 
Immortal  be  the  lilies  thou  hast  won ! 
Eternal  be  thy  station  in  the  sun, 

That  shines  not  on  a  splendor  such  as  thou! 

A  strength  is  thine  beyond  the  armored  prow, 
And  past  dominion  of  the  lance  and  gun, 
Tho  now  thou  stand,  as  battle- thunders  stun, 

Heroic,  on  the  fields  that  cannon  plow. 

Triumph  be  thine,  O  beautiful  and  dear! 

Whose  cause  is  one  with  Freedom  and  her  name. 

The  armies  of  the  night  devise  thee  wrong, 
But  on  thy  helm  the  star  of  Truth  is  clear, 
And  Truth  shall  conquer,  tho  thy  cities  flame, 
And  morning  break,  tho  now  the  night  is 
strong ! 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  NIGHT  OF  MAN 

Europe,  how  have  kings  dealt  with  thee,  and  sown 
Thine  every  acre  from  a  human  breast ! 
Red  was  the  seed  and  red  the  harrow  pressed 

To  bitter  fields  whose  harvest  was  a  moan ; 

And  the  long  years  pass  on  to  the  unknown, 
And  cannon  utter  now  thy  lords'  unrest, 
Where  still  their  armies  gather  for  the  test, 

And  heavy  darkness  holds  about  the  throne. 

And  shall  they  sow  forever  hi  this  wise, 
To  reap  that  corn  whose  roots  take  hold  on  Hell? 

Better  a  desert  and  the  sunlight  there, 
In  which  the  lions  gaze  with  stony  eyes 

From  nameless  ruins  where  the  lizards  dwell, 
And  the  small  hawk  floats  lonely  on  the  air. 


152 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


TO  THE  ALLIED  ARMS 

Where  children  slept,  gun  answers  unto  gun; 

Where  peace  was  on  the  orchards,  armies  fight; 

Now  burst,  on  vale  and  devastated  height, 
The  tides  that  raven  and  the  seas  that  stun. 
Yet  wage  ye  now  the  battles  of  the  sun 

And  with  a  holy  ray  your  flags  are  bright, 

Tho  deep  on  Europe  lies  the  two-fold  night 
Of  pain's  despair  and  death's  oblivion. 

More  clear,  more  terrible,  the  days  reveal 
What  foe  is  yours,  and  how  malignly  vast 

The  horror  and  betrayal  of  its  plan- 
That  tyranny  which  rears  its  crest  of  steel 
To  blot  the  Future's  blue,  a  shadow  cast 
By  Hell's  red  star  on  Liberty  and  Man. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  BATTLEFIELD  AT  NIGHT 

When  on  war's  wounded  falls  the  final  sleep, 
How  beautiful  shall  silence  be  to  those 
On  whom  till  then  the  sounds  of  carnage  close 

And  tramping  billows  of  the  conflict  sweep ! 

A  camp  unsentineled  that  host  shall  keep, 
Nor  countersign  reveal  its  friends  and  foes; 
And  in  that  zone  of  death  shall  be  repose 

More  kind  than  love,  and  than  the  dark  more  deep. 

But  now  unceasing  thunders  tread  the  night, 
'Mid  flamings  and  cessations  of  the  light, 
And  the  faint  sense  delays  ere  death  to  hark 
The  bellowing  of  guns  against  the  sky, 
And,  as  the  decimating  cannon  cry, 
The  mangled  horses  screaming  in  the  dark. 


154 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


KINGSHIP 

Mercy  and  peace  how  many  warring  years 
The  sons  of  men  have  sought,  and  sought  in  vain  I 
Ever  was  one  who  found  the  spur  and  rein— 

The  monarch,  girt  around  with  servile  spears. 

Caesars  and  sultans,  princes  and  emirs 
Have  made  an  earth  demoniac  with  pain. 
The  throne  is  like  an  island  in  the  main, 

And  that  deep  sea  the  sea  of  human  tears. 

O  Spirit  of  the  world,  is  this  thy  truth, 
And  this  thine  answer  to  our  questionings? 

Shalt  thou  be  god  or  devil  in  our  sight, 
Beholding  mighty  nations  and  their  youth 
Betrayed  into  the  feeble  hands  of  kings? 
Feeble,  but  ah!  the  flame  of  war  they  light! 


155 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  DEATH  OF  RUPERT  BROOKE 

Poets  of  England,  where  are  you  to-day? 

If  I,  removed  by  nigh  three  hundred  years 

From  English  soil,  share  thus  your  hopes  and 

fears, 

And,  young  no  longer,  plan  to  join  the  fray, 
What  swords  are  at  your  gates,  that  you  delay 

Your  passage  to  the  thundering  frontiers? 

The  heart  of  Bruce  was  hurled  beyond  the  spears, 
And  one  as  great  hath  shown  you  now  the  way. 

Say  not,  "Why  place  a  weapon  in  his  hand?" 

Say  not,  "He  could  have  written  many  a  book, 
To  render  better  service  to  his  land." 

There  comes  a  time  when  sterner  things  must  be, 
And  all  the  words  of  Byron  and  of  Brooke 
Match  not  the  stand  they  took  for  liberty. 


156 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  HELOTS 

Now  the  grim  lords  of  Europe  have  their  will, 
And  war  is  on  the  world,  and  war's  despair. 
The  monster  that  they  nurtured  with  such  care 

At  battle's  crimson  river  drinks  its  fill, 

And  the  rent  veins  of  men  cease  not  to  spill, 
And  the  red  fangs  cease  not  to  pierce  and  tear, 
And  the  mad  ranks  press  ever  on,  and  bare 

Their  bosoms,  that  its  food  be  given  still. 

Such  is  the  price,  O  brothers,  that  ye  pay 

For  tyrant,  prince  and  war-lord;  thus  your  fate 

To  madman  and  to  despot  is  consigned. 
In  peace,  ye  toil  that  folly  have  its  way; 
In  war,  ye  bleed  in  misery  and  hate; 
In  war  or  peace,  ye  labor  deaf  and  blind. 


157 


THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  CROWN-PRINCE  AT  VERDUN 

By  Mars  his  hilt!  this  is  a  royal  sport, 
And  fit  amusement  for  a  king- to-be ! 
Surely  the  revels  now  permitted  thee 

Excel  the  poor  diversions  of  a  court ! 

Against  the  tireless  thunder  of  the  fort 
Thy  ranks  go  forth  as  waves  upon  a  sea- 
Puppets  and  pawns  that  move  at  thy  decree. 

A  merry  game,  but  mayst  thou  find  it  short! 

Or  is  it  as  a  painter  that  thy  skill 

Favors  the  world? — daubing  with  red  the  snow, 
As  on  the  mighty  canvas  of  a  hill 

Thy  cannon  spread  the  pigments,  till  the  whole 
Stands  perfect,  and  applauding  armies  know 
The  vision  of  the  Hell  that  waits  thy  soul. 


158 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BEFORE  DAWN  IN  AMERICA 

Slowly  the  hours  beyond  the  midnight  crawl. 

Far  on  the  frozen  night  a  train  goes  by. 

I  know  there  is  no  starlight  in  the  sky, 
But  that  concealing  fog  is  over  all, 
Alike  for  stars  and  men  a  somber  pall. 

Remoter  now,  a  cold,  mechanic  cry 

Is  signal,  and  the  poplars  stir  and  sigh, 
As  ranks  that  wait  in  vain  the  trumpet's  call. 

Now  breaks  the  day  on  Belgium  and  France. 
Over  the  shoulder  of  the  world,  I  know 
What  rubrics  gleam  on  the  recording  snow 

(That  page  of  Heaven's  book  that  lay  so  pure!) 
As,  votive  to  the  race's  huge  mischance, 
Men  die,  O  Liberty!  that  thou  endure. 


159 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 
GUN-PRACTICE 

SAN  FRANCISCO 

Dull,  on  the  somber  headlands  of  the  Gate, 
Where  morning  winds  of  the  Pacific  go, 
The  giant  mortars  toll,  pulsed  blow  on  blow 

As  of  a  mace  that  in  the  grasp  of  Fate 

Swings,  and  the  thundering  coasts  reverberate. 
To  silence  now  the  vast  vibrations  flow, 
Where  burns  the  sun  on  seas  without  a  foe 

And  the  far  cliffs  rise  cold  and  desolate. 

But  in  this  heart  aware  of  good  and  ill, 
The  grave  and  mighty  echoes  persevere, 

Till  now  the  vision  that  is  mine  transmutes 
The  speech  of  cannon,  and  a  whisper  chill 
Sinks  as  the  hiss  of  serpents  in  mine  ear : 
"Sons  of  destruction,  ye  are  yet  as  brutes!" 


1 60 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


TO  ENGLAND 

O  mighty  Mother  of  our  heart  and  mind! 
We,  sons  of  thine  in  vision  and  in  deed, 
Gaze  eastward,  where  our  brothers  toil  and  bleed, 

And  hear  thy  battle-music  on  the  wind. 

Behold!  we  gaze,  who  are  to  thee  as  blind, 
And  listen,  seeming  deaf  to  all  thy  need, 
But  in  our  hearts  what  ancient  Voices  plead! 

What  clarions  echo,  calling  kind  to  kind! 

We  are  a  folk  of  many  hearths  and  hates, 
Fretted  with  alien  counsels,  and  unsure; 

Yet  some  there  be  who  know  our  war  is  one, 
And  strain  upon  the  barrier  of  our  Fates, 
And  scorn  the  coward  twilight  that  endures 
Between  our  darkness  and  thy  noonday  sun. 


161 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


CIVILIZATION  AT  BAY 

Can  there  be  one  whose  blood  from  England  finds 
Nurture  and  s^ource,  who  sees  her  war  to-day 
And  yearns  not  for  the  liberative  fray? 

If  such  a  one  there  be,  what  darkness  blinds. 

His  vision,  or  what  craft  of  cunning  minds 
Have  made  that  vision  their  corrupted  prey? 
Now  is  the  season  of  the  world's  dismay, 

And  now  a  cry  goes  forth  on  all  the  winds. 

Now  calls  the  Lioness,  and  one  by  one 

Her  whelps  make  answer,  east  and  south  and  west; 

But  thou,  the  greatest  of  that  royal  line, 
America!  dost  slumber  in  the  sun, 

Nor  loose  the  allegiant  thunder  in  thy  breast, 
Nor  dream  what  world-derision  shall  be  thine. 


162 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  DAY  OF  DECISION 

Now  is  that  tiger  loosened  on  mankind 

Whose  fangs,  if  here  undrawn,  all  men  shall  feel, 
Till  wounds  be  given  that  ages  cannot  heal. 

And  thou,  America!  thou  standest  blind! 

What !  wilt  thou  wait  till  Hell  has  undermined 
The  fane  of  Freedom,  and  her  columns  reel?— 
Wait  till  annunciating  throats  of  steel 

Declare  thy  doom  upon  the  poisoned  wind? 

Or  if  thou  waitest  till  the  Beast  is  bound, 
As  lesser  peoples  wage  thy  war  for  thee, 
In  what  appraisement  shall  thy  name  be  found? 

Shall  not  they  cry :    "We  fought  to  save  a  world, 
Thou  guarding  past  the  desecrated  sea 

Thy  calloused  patience  and  thy  colors  furled!" 


'63 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  1916 

Indifferent  to  a  world  in  agony, 

The  drunken  wasters  crowd  the  cabaret, 
Whose  midnight  orgies  end  but  with  the  day. 

O  Liberty,  are  these  the  fruits  of  thee— 

This  swarm  of  vampires  that  the  dark  sets  free, 
To  batten  upon  murder,  and  decay? 
Are  these  our  masters  and  the  race  their  prey, 

And  hast  thou  long  to  live  when  such  things  be? 

So  in  the  wake  of  war  do  jackals  come 

To  feast  on  those  that  perish  in  thy  name, 
And  when  the  wounded  breasts  at  last  are  dumb, 

To  howl  exultant  to  the  setting  moon, 
Till,  frightened  by  the  sun's  returning  flame, 
They  scamper  to  their  holes  and  sleep  by  noon. 


164 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 


THE  "LUSITANIA" 

Above  her  grave  the  dipping  sea-gulls  cry 

To  swift  companion  or  to  tireless  mate; 

The  impassive  sea  lies  blue  and  desolate, 
Whose  vacant  shires  reflect  the  vacant  sky; 
And  ocean- winds  pass  on  without  a  sigh, 

Fugitive,  aimless,  uncompassionate. 

Below,  for  witnesses  of  bestial  hate, 
The  bones  and  memories  of  our  murdered  lie. 

For  do  we  still  remember?    Now  the  year 
Brings  back  the  date  of  their  unhappy  day, 

And  still  the  butcher  and  his  lords  go  free- 
Go  free,  nor  trouble  to  conceal  the  sneer 
For  us  whose  irresponsive  hearts  betray 
The  vast  indifference  of  heaven  and  sea. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 
WAR 

THE   PAST 

In  that  abyss  what  monsters  greet  the  sight ! 
Then  were  the  fertile  leisures  of  the  sage, 
And  stony  Art  saw  then  her  Golden  Age ; 

But  nation  upon  nation  in  that  night, 

With  flame  to  blast  and  savage  steel  to  smite, 
Fell  fiendlike,  drunken  with  the  battle-rage, 
And  Time's  red  arm  upholds  a  bloody  page 

Before  the  revelation  of  the  light. 

The  dreadful  heritage  is  on  us  yet : 

Rapine  and  tears  and  torment  and  despair— 
The  murder-stains  wherewith  our  hands  are  wet. 
Still  round  us  rise  the  dungeons  of  the  Past, 
The  crypt  abominable  whence  we  fare 
Slowly,  ah!  slowly  to  the  light  at  last. 


1 66 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 
WAR 

THE  PRESENT 

They  will  not  pause  for  counsel.    Deadly  wings 
Take  now  the  skies,  and  the  horizons  slay 
With  hands  invisible,  and  warships  sway 

To  billows  broken  by  their  thunderings. 

So  wrought  the  lands  where  now  the  desert  flings 
A  pall  of  sand  on  columns  that  decay; 
And  whose  the  realm  none  knows  unto  this  day, 

Nor  knows  the  Wrath  that  smote  its  cruel  kings. 

Is  this  the  wholesome  blue,  the  heavens  of  night 

Whose  eastern  star  the  wise  men  had  for  guide? 
Found  they  the  Prince  of  Peace  below  its  light? 

That  orb  hath  set.     Swift  from  its  holy  place 
With  level  wings  the  pampered  vultures  slide, 
As  morning  glimmers  on  a  dead  man's  face. 


ON  THE  GREAT  WAR 
WAR 

THE   PUTURE 

Be  beautiful,  O  morning's  feet  of  gold, 

Upon  the  mountains  of  that  time  to  be! 

Be  swift,  O  day  spring  that  shall  set  us  free 
From  all  the  blinding  tyrannies  of  old! 
Thine  are  the  years  by  seer  and  bard  foretold, 

And  thine  the  judgment  driven  as  a  sea 

On  man's  high-treason  to  humanity. 
Thine  is  the  sun  their  armies  shall  behold. 

O  ranks  that  serve  the  future  and  the  Right, 

How  fair  your  conquests  and  how  high  your  wars, 
When,  bathed  in  that  deliverance  of  light, 

Your  swords  are  lifted  against  pain  and  wrong, 
And,  ere  man's  House  be  builded  toward  the'stars, 
Ye  lay  its  deep  foundations  with  a  song! 


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